Early Life and Education
Janssen was born in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. Her first name, Famke, means "little girl" in West Frisian, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein Beumer. In addition to her native Dutch, Janssen speaks English and French. She also learned German, but has not kept up with it. Following her high school graduation, Janssen studied economics for a year at the University of Amsterdam, which she later called "the stupidest idea I ever had." In the early 1990s, she enrolled at Columbia University to study creative writing and literature.
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