This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Though Salt Lake Comic Con is famous for bringing cosplayers of all types to the city, it's also a place where fans can get to know the people who bring characters to life.
A Saturday morning Q&A event featured one such celebrity, Famke Janssen, who's famous for playing roles like Jean Gray in the "X-Men" series and Xenia Onatopp in the 1995 James Bond movie "GoldenEye."
After moderator Bryan Young interviewed Janssen, audience members were permitted to ask questions ranging from which co-star was a better kisser to whether her teeth were real. (They are.)
Janssen shared with the crowd of about 1,600 people experiences she'd had throughout her career. Part of a video clip used for Janssen's introduction showed her with Patrick Stewart early in her career on the set of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
"It was one of my first jobs and Patrick actually at the time gave me the best advice. I was very new to acting," said Janssen. He told her that if you look into one eye rather than back and forth at both, it'll look steadier on camera.
The two later starred together in the "X-Men" movies.
Janssen said she "loved every second" of filming "GoldenEye." She said she was "definitely intimidated at moments because it was such a big production. I was very new as an actress by the time this came about."
Over her career, Janssen has acted alongside actors as famous as Robert De Niro, but she said she's tried not to be intimidated by them "because it doesn't work performance-wise," she said. "It messes everything up."
While Janssen's most famous roles put her in the center of action movies, she's also taken on parts in darker or more traumatic plots, like "Taken." One audience member asked how movies like that affect Janssen's perspective in real life.
Those roles have taught her to "live your life wisely but ... don't let fear take over," she told audience members.
Janssen said she tries to prepare as best she can for her roles, but she doesn't have as many personal experiences to draw on when it comes to high-intensity roles like the one she plays in "Taken."
"It's just in that very moment that you have to make believe," Janssen said.
In her role as "X-Men's" Jean Grey and Phoenix, however, Janssen said she had more than enough material to study to prepare her.
"I wanted to do justice to what had been written and all the fans who had been supporting the comic books for so long," Janssen said.
Despite the "X-Men" story's long history, Janssen said she enjoyed how director Bryan Singer portrayed it "in a reality that we hadn't seen before."
"All the comic book adaptations have been much flashier, and then all of a sudden we were real people with real problems; we just happened to be mutants," Janssen said. "And I think that's the reason why so many people could relate to the characters."
Jansen said she was "thrilled" when she got the part of Jean Grey because it was such a competitive process. (A book about the franchise claims actresses Maria Bello and Lucy Lawless were considered.)
"I still can't believe I was picked," she said. "Still today, it's just something that I'm so incredibly grateful for. It's just such a powerful and strong character."
Over the years, Jensson said the cast of the "X-Men" movies became a "family."
"People had children, divorces, you name it — everything over the years," she said.
Because of that close relationship, she couldn't decide whether love interest James Marsden and Hugh Jackman was a better kisser.
"They're both friends," she said with a smile. "They both did a really great job."
Twitter: @mnoblenews