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You always knew when she was pissed off--this sullen darkness would come over her face. She wouldn't complain, but you knew she was upset. - Christian Campbell, on his sister, Neve |
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In 1995, Time magazine dubbed
Canadian-born actress Neve (rhymes with
"rev") Campbell "TV's most believable teenager," listing her
side by side with Bart
Simpson's feisty, forgetful granddad, Abraham J. Simpson, as one of six
bright lights in the vast wasteland of network television. Ever the pragmatist,
Campbell didn't let the distinction go to her head. "People started calling
up and congratulating me," she later told one interviewer, "and all I
could think of was, 'My picture's next to Grandpa Simpson.' I mean, Grandpa
Simpson's awesome, but you can't take it too seriously." Campbell, who
played brainy, responsible Julia Salinger on the long-running Fox drama Party
of Five, does take one thing very seriously: her acting career. During Party
of Five's six-year run, she frequently put in 18-hour days on the set; and
during her summer hiatuses, she made movies. Many small-screen stars struggle to
trade in the grueling work schedule and character stereotyping of a hit
television series for the less hectic schedule and character variety to be found
in film, only to discover that finding a solid breakout film role is no easy
task. But Campbell struck box-office gold on her second outing, in the lead role
of the sleeper 1996 hit Scream, horror director Wes Craven's tongue-in-cheek
homage to slasher flicks. Performing is all in the family for Campbell, whose Dutch-descended mother and Scottish father met on an acting job. Though her parents split up shortly after she was born, they were in full support of Campbell when she decided, after taking in a performance of The Nutcracker at the age of 6, that she wanted to learn ballet. Three years of private lessons paid huge dividends when the prestigious National Ballet of Canada, which takes on only a handful of new students from among the thousands who apply each year, accepted the 9-year-old Campbell. The young dancer studied with the company for five years before the intense demands on her time and her gifts became too much for her to bear. "I basically had a nervous breakdown," Campbell has since recalled of the extreme performance pressures that caused her to give up ballet and follow the generally less mentally and physically taxing pursuit of acting. Quite understandably, having the words "Spent five years with the National Ballet" on her résumé helped the aspiring thespian win a role in a Toronto production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera just months after she had hung up her toe-shoes. At 15, Campbell was the youngest member of the cast, and she ended up staying on for two years and 800 performances. Canadian television producers came knocking after Campbell bid Phantom
a fond adieu, and the next couple of years witnessed her appearances in several
commercials, a handful of television movies, and a Canadian feature film, Paint
In addition to scoring points with starry-eyed teens, Party of Five's
cast members Ever since she Scream-ed her lungs out in theaters across
America,
Campbell's career has been on the fast track, both on the small and big screens.
Apart from her Unfortunately, Campbell's personal life hasn't been quite as smooth-sailing: in July 1997, she separated from her husband of two years, actor Jeff Colt; the couple divorced the following May. She is currently keeping company with fellow thesp John Cusack. |
Cans. South of the border, audiences got their first good look at the
beguiling ingenue in 1994, when MTV aired several episodes of the Canadian TV
series Catwalk, a show Campbell had walked out on after a single season
because she felt her character had become little more than a sex-fiend. That
same year, she appeared in a lead role in the NBC movie I Know My Son Is
Alive, alongside American television veterans (and real-life couple) Corbin
Bernsen and Amanda Pays. NBC producers subsequently persuaded their young
discovery to fly out to Southern California to get a better feel for the
American television industry. Within weeks of arriving in Los Angeles, Campbell
beat out 300 other hopefuls to secure a role in a Fox pilot about four siblings
and their baby brother who must raise themselves after their parents die in an
accident. Thanks largely to Campbell's fetching, fresh-faced looks and the hunky
appeal of co-stars Matthew
Fox and Scott
Wolf, Party of Five became a staple for the all-important youth
demographic, and survived several threatened cancellations to become one of the
most popular drama series on TV.
impressed critics across the nation with the caliber of their
acting, and, before long, Hollywood producers came calling. Wisely, Campbell
opted not to complicate her graduation to the silver screen by stretching her
abilities. For her role in 1996's The Craft, she switched from playing an
angst-ridden teen who must cope with such everyday problems as unwanted
pregnancy and family alcoholism to playing an angst-ridden teen who must cope
with such everyday problems as witchcraft and levitation. Opening atop the heap
at the late-spring box office, The Craft scored a modest success, which
properly primed audiences for the Yuletide release of Campbell's next screen
vehicle, the blood-soaked Scream. Once again, Campbell played it safe,
taking on the role of yet another angst-ridden teen, this one preyed upon by a
serial killer with a yen for horror movie conventions. Veteran director Wes
Craven surrounded Campbell with a bevy of pretty faces (including those of Drew
Barrymore, Courteney Cox, and Skeet Ulrich); screenwriter Kevin Williamson loaded the script with sarcastic
one-liners;
and — ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom! — teens everywhere flooded into theaters for a
bit of good old-fashioned sex appeal and stabbing.
Party of Five tenure
(which ended in 2000), she returned
to theaters in the imaginatively titled sequel to Scream, Scream 2,
in which she co-starred with fellow lovelies Sarah
Michelle Gellar and Jada
Pinkett Smith. She next teamed with Kevin
Bacon and Matt
Dillon for Wild Things, a twisty modern noir that positioned Campbell
as an oversexed white-