Famke Janssen could hit you with a car and you’d probably say thank you. Few actors are quite so good at inflicting violence. Think of her squeezing Pierce Brosnan between her thighs as a deadly hitwoman in GoldenEye. Or her threatening to shove her foot so far up Josh Hartnett’s rear end in The Faculty that he’ll be “sucking her toes ’till Christmas”. Or her generating cosmic blasts of telekinetic energy as Jean Grey in X-Men. Today, though, the tables have been turned. Janssen is under siege.

“New York has been taken over by rats,” says the 57-year-old. “They’re not scared of humans any more! And now we have these new things called lantern flies – have you heard of them?” I admit I haven’t. Janssen’s eyes widen. “I must tell you! They’re these moth-like creatures that look very nondescript from afar, but when they open their wings,...