Why Margaret From The Vault Looks So Familiar

There are many key players involved in the twists and turns of the bank heist thriller "The Vault," but few keep their cards as close to their chest as British official Margaret. As both an agent for the UK government and a longtime personal friend of treasure hunter Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham), Margaret's true intentions are always concealed behind her prim smile and flinty eyes. This delicate balance is struck perfectly in the performance of Dutch actor and former model Famke Janssen, who plays Margaret.

Whether or not you could immediately pinpoint exactly where you've seen her before, there's no doubt that Janssen's face is more than a little familiar looking. She has been working steadily in film and TV since the early '90s and has made her mark on the industry by bringing several iconic characters to life in major film franchises.

Here are some of the reasons why Famke Janssen aka Margaret from "The Vault" looks so familiar.

Janssen's earliest notable on-screen roles came courtesy of TV shows like "Star Trek: The Next Generation," on which she played the powerful pheromone producing Kriosian named Kamala, and the nighttime soap "Melrose Place," which saw her portraying a woman caught up in the mind games of the residents of the eponymous apartment complex.

While those shows helped start Janssen's acting career, her major breakout came with the 1995 James Bond film "GoldenEye." The movie marked the first time Pierce Brosnan played the British secret agent and helped kick off a brand new era for the franchise. As the deadly Xenia Onatopp, Janssen got the chance to play a complex villain and show off her physicality thanks to her character's signature move of crushing people to death with her thighs.

In a 2012 essay for USA Today about the role, Janssen wrote, "It's the one thing in my career that I should be the most grateful for. It catapulted me into stardom. I was a struggling actor, and that changed everything."

Not only did Xenia give Janssen's career a huge boost, but the character has gone on to become one of the best received from the James Bond franchise. Entertainment Weekly listed her as one of The 10 Best Bond Girls and ScreenRant declared her one of the 10 Most Badass Bond Girls Who Could Take On The Role Of 007 Themselves.

Following her big breakout in "GoldenEye," Janssen branched out into a diverse series of roles. She played one of the alien possessed teachers in the cult classic horror film "The Faculty" and the conniving Evelyn Stockard-Price in the 1999 remake "House on Haunted Hill." TV also continued to draw her attention with parts on hit shows such as "Ally McBeal" and "Nip/Tuck."

However, as she did with "GoldenEye” in the '90s, the '00s saw Janssen establish herself as an important part of a major film franchise. 2000's "X-Men" was the first significant live-action outing for Marvel Comics' superhero team and its success led not only to multiple direct sequels, but also a whole series of prequels and spin-offs. Janssen originated the role of telekinetic mutant Jean Grey aka Phoenix, a part she reprised in the original movie's sequels, as well as the spin-off "The Wolverine" and 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past."

There's also the possibility that we'll see Janssen in the role again sometime in the future. While speaking with us here at Looper, Janssen said of her long-running character, "[Jean] was such a wonderful character to play ... it'd be great [to come back], but let's just see how life goes."

Janssen's career continued on steadily throughout the 2010s. She was a lead on the supernatural horror series "Hemlock Grove," which was one of Netflix's earliest forays into original scripted programming. Shondaland series "How to Get Away with Murder" saw her regularly recurring as Eve Rothlo, an ally and occasional lover of Annalise Keating (Viola Davis, whose praises Janssen sang during an interview with Looper). On "The Blacklist," she made appearances as Susan Hargrave, the mysterious military intelligence contractor who would go on to headline the one-season spin-off "The Blacklist: Redemption." And in Ava DuVernay's acclaimed miniseries "When They See Us" she played real-life Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nancy Ryan.

As with the other eras of her career, Janssen once again found herself enmeshed in a popular film franchise during this time. After co-starring in 2008's surprise mega-hit "Taken," Janssen returned to reprise the role of perennial ass-kicker Bryan Mills' (Liam Neeson) wife Lenore in "Taken 2" and "Taken 3."

Whether you recognize her from her diverse resume of one-off projects or know her from the many film franchises she has helped anchor, there's a good chance that you've seen Famke Janssen long before you hit play on "The Vault."