NEW YORK -- She's tall. She's pretty. And she's audibly groaning as she sits in a Manhattan hotel room.
It's that B-word again.
Famke Janssen can't bear it. It's been used to describe her way too often, and she's fed up -- sort of -- as she hears it again.
"Yes," says the Dutch-born former model in flawless English. "The Bond girl thing.
"They can't seem to get that off me. I might as well change my name to Bond Girl Famke Janssen."
Okay, some can't shake the fact that she played a Russian hit woman in the 1995 James Bond picture Golden Eye. Okay, others are obsessed about her thigh-crushing death grip in the picture.
"But I'd be a lot more frustrated if it had hindered my career in any means, but it hasn't," Janssen reports. "It gets stuck in people's minds."
Actually, Janssen is stuck in many filmmakers' minds, too.
The 33-year-old will have co-starred in five major movies by the end of this year.
Janssen was an alcoholic ex-wife in The Gingerbread Man, a reluctant kleptomaniac hero in Deep Rising, and a poker expert in Rounders.
In the next few months she can be seen portraying a book publisher in Celebrity, and a shy high school teacher in The Faculty.
Obviously, typecasting is not her concern -- either because of the Bond girl thing or the former model thing.
"I look at it like it all helped," says Janssen. "When I think about modelling, I remember that I didn't have to wait tables when I was an unemployed actress -- thank God.
"And really when I think of the Bond girl thing, I say to myself that the movie made over $100 million, and it gave me a huge opportunity."
The 5-foot-11 Janssen has earned most of those opportunities.
A former economics major at the University Of Amsterdam, she made the transition from model to actress seamlessly, just as she went from Dutch-speaking to English-speaking effortlessly.
"Although, now my relatives tell me I speak Dutch with an American accent," says Janssen, who has returned to live in the Big Apple after basing herself in L.A.
Forget about the Americanization of Famke.
Despite her fast-lane lifestyle in modelling and as an actress, Janssen is slow to embrace her fame, or anybody else's.
'You have to learn to look outward, at exterior parts, or you'll miss out on things," she says. "If you are too inward, or interior, you lose opportunities that are good for you, because they pass you by.
"That's what acting has taught me. I also know that you have to live in the moment as an actor and as a human being. If you keep thinking about what you might miss or fear the past and the trouble you might've had, you are less of a person."
Very philosophical. "For a Bond girl," she says.
Well, philosophical for an actress or actor working in the Hollywood movie industry.
"It is difficult," she confirms, "to keep a clear head, and to avoid the pursuit of what other people have. It's one of the reasons I moved from L.A. to New York.
"When I was living in L.A. I felt that all that I was doing was focusing on my career, trying to get what everybody else had -- more money, bigger roles.
"I realized I didn't want anything like that. It is deceptive out there. You can lose sight of what you want, and who you are."
Some call it the addiction of fame.
"I don't mind being famous, but I wouldn't want it to the extent that Leonardo Di Caprio has it. That seems like a real hindrance. He just can't live his life in any normal way."
And this is coming from a Bond girl, soon to be in two more high profile movies in the next few months.
Ironically one is called Celebrity, Woody Allen's version of what fame, or the pursuit of fame can do to a person.
As an example, a superficial supermodel (played by Charlize Theron) is skewered in the film.
"It's a very easy environment to make fun of," says Janssen, who was ranked as one of the top 10 models in the business.
Still, there is a chance. Think of it -- Famke Janssen -- one of the top 10 superactresses in the business.
"Not with the career choices I'm making," says Janssen, who is referring to the varied and mostly supporting roles she's accepted.
What about The Faculty? The high-profile sci-fi thriller is directed by Robert Rodriguez, written by Kevin Williamson, and it is expected to be a big hit when the picture is released Christmas Day.
"I play a very shy teacher," says Janssen.
Like a shy teacher from outer space?
"A teacher from outer space? What is that? Another movie?"
Just guessing?
"Guessing?" says Janssen pretending to be outraged. "You're not guessing. No, you are prying."
After almost 12 years of dealing with media from the Global Village, this Bond girl has learned a few things.
"I can see," says Janssen, going from grim to grin, "through all of it."
The FAMKE JANSSEN File
BORN: Amsterdam, talked into becoming a model at the University of Amsterdam. She left school the next year, moved to New York at 21.
NAME GAME: Famke: Means "little girl" in the Friesland language spoken in the province north of Holland.
SURVIVED: The 1994 TV movie Model By Day. "It was awful. That was pure desperation," she says of the beginning when she couldn't get hired as an actor. Also co-starred in Clive Barker's Lord Of Illusions with Scott Bakula.
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