FAMKE Janssen and Jon Favreau are chuckling over the interrogation technique of the previous interviewer. He'd arrived armed with cue cards bearing questions written in large capital letters. The card visible on top of the pile on the coffee table invited a personal response on a sexual activity I cannot name in a family newspaper. The title - Love And Sex - of the film they're in a London hotel room promoting must have given him the impression that anything goes.

Dutch-born Janssen made an impact in the James Bond adventure GoldenEye and played telepathic Jean Grey in this summer's X Men. In between she's mixed roles in independent and studio pictures including Woody Allen's Celebrity, Rounders with Matt Damon and horror film The House On Haunted Hill. Favreau is the chunky actor best known for writing and starring in the hip comedy Swingers. Since then he's been in Deep Impact and Very Bad Things and played boxer Rocky Marciano in a TV biopic.

The romantic comedy Love And Sex finds Janssen's magazine writer Kate reflecting on her love life with old flame Adam (Favreau). In real life the pair had only five days to get to know each other before becoming intimate on camera. "I spoke to her on the phone when she was filming in London and I was in Los Angeles - and that didn't go very well," recalls Favreau.

So what went wrong? "First I talked about my knowledge of Swedish and she said, 'I'm Dutch' and all I know about them is how fast they lost to the Nazis," he explains.

The film's writer and director Valerie Breiman acted as chaperone on their first date. "We had dinner and then she said, 'you guys go off together and get to know each other'. We went dancing," says Janssen.

Although the story is semi-autobiographical, Breiman proved willing to listen to her actors' suggestions.

"There were certain things she had very strong opinions about but was very open to input from us. She would let us improvise a little bit as well," says Favreau.

As the pair swap banter during the interview it's obvious they're at ease in each other's company, a legacy of shooting Love And Sex followed by Made (written, directed by and starring Favreau).

The story may be rooted in Breiman's own life but Janssen brings her own experience to every role. "Some are going to seem closer to what I am than others," she says.

"To me a movie like GoldenEye has as much of me in it as this film. It comes in a package that sometimes looks closer to you than other times."

She doesn't view it as a woman's picture, believing it deals with emotional moments from both the male and female perspective. And from seeing and talking to audiences, it appeals as much to men as it does to women.

The shooting schedule was just 21 days which meant filming many screen sexual encounters in a short space of time. "Every other day I was making out with somebody. It's a little scary," she says. One of the boyfriends is an actor but she wouldn't go out with one off-screen. "I've never dated actors. I don't believe in actresses dating actors."

Favreau reflects on the dating game. "The character I play is an artist coming into his own. Through my acting I've been in the same position where I was not a star but was famous enough to be able to pick up a girl. And I've been through phases of being single for a few months. The pendulum swings back a lot faster so you feel lonely and want to be involved in a relationship. I do go through all the feelings Adam goes through but don't act in the same way."

Unlike most other Bond leading ladies Janssen has avoided typecasting, achieving her goal to work with good directors playing as many different characters as possible.

Favreau's own position differs. "As an actor I'm sought after in the independent film world. The ones I make tend to get distribution so I'm a good horse to bet on. In studio movies I'm castable but they won't put me in the lead yet. As a writer they'll hire me pretty much for any project," he says.

Guesting in TV's hit sitcom Friends exposed him to more people than his films although writing pays for his house.

After the promotional trip for Love And Sex, he was returning home to finish work on Made. "I knew I wanted to work with Famke again because she was such a pleasure on set in addition to being so talented," he says. This is a mutal admiration society that could run and run.

l Love And Sex (15) opens today