Famke Janssen says yes to BlackBerry, no to selfies

LOS ANGELES — Former model-turned-actress Famke Janssen (X-Men films, James Bond's GoldenEye) is happy to be starring in a high-profile series for a hot digital entertainment company, Netflix, with the horror tinged Hemlock Grove.

Just don't expect her to be a tech maven.

She's refreshingly anti-tech, as she told us in a recent interview at USA TODAY's bureau here.

No thanks to tech

"People probably think of me as some dinosaur. But I like being unique and my own person. I don't even have a TV." She owns an iPhone, "but I've never used it." The Apple device was a gift, and has stayed in the box. She also owns (and uses) an iPad.

BlackBerry Curve

There is one device that she wouldn't leave home without — the BlackBerry Curve phone, first introduced by the company then known as Research in Motion in 2007. "I love it. I type so much on it." The Curve, unlike modern smartphones, with 4-inch (iPhone 5s) to 5-inch (Samsung Galaxy S5) LCD screens, has a 2.4-inch screen and non-HD, pre-Retina 320x240 resolution. The phone "looks really vintage .. .and has the keyboard. I like the keyboard a lot better than the touch-screen. I find with (a) touch-screen, I make random calls. It becomes really embarrassing."

No to social media

Unlike most actors today, who work hard to beef up their social-media standings and brag about how many followers they have, Janssen has sat this party out. She has no Facebook page, no Twitter, no Google+, no Instagram.

"It's not just old school, but I really like my privacy very much. I find that all these social-media outlets are about self promotion. That's not what I'm looking for."

Why she doesn't watch TV or surf the Internet

"I grew up in Holland in the dark ages when there were two channels, and I never was much of a fan of watching TV. Now, I purposely don't do it because I find it to be one of those spirals that sucks you into a vortex, and you lose hours and hours. I find the Internet a bit of the same thing." (She watches her series, Hemlock Grove, via the Netflix app on an iPad. She also uses the device to do the New York Times crossword.)

Selfies vs. autographs

The new trend in the fan world is for a smartphone selfie with a celebrity. Janssen's take? You had to ask? "The selfie is an odd phenomenon. People throwing their arms in your face, and you don't know them. It's a little daunting, but part of the time we live in."

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