Neve Campbell

Neve Adrianne Campbell (/ˈnɛv/; born October 3, 1973) is a Canadian actress. After working in Canadian and American television, Campbell emerged as a scream queen for her starring roles in horror and thriller films. She has also appeared in blockbusters and independent features.

Following a series of minor credits, Campbell had a starring role in the drama series Catwalk (1992–1993) and the television film The Canterville Ghost (1996). She subsequently relocated to the United States to star as Julia Salinger in the Fox teen drama series Party of Five (1994–2000), which became her breakthrough role. She rose to international prominence for her leading role as Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven's slasher film Scream (1996), which spawned the Scream franchise, in which she reprised her role in each film except the sixth. She also headlined the horror film The Craft (1996), the thriller film Wild Things (1998), and the drama film Panic (2000).

Campbell starred in, produced, and wrote the story for Robert Altman's drama film The Company (2003). After a hiatus, she returned to television with a recurring role on the drama series Medium (2007) and starring roles on the action series The Philanthropist (2009) and the miniseries Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012). She has since appeared in the action film Skyscraper (2018) and the drama film Clouds (2020), and played starring roles on the political thriller series House of Cards (2016–2017) and the crime drama series The Lincoln Lawyer (2022–present).

Campbell was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, on October 3, 1973. Campbell's Dutch mother, Marnie (née Neve), is a yoga instructor and psychologist from Amsterdam. She descends from Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the Netherlands and converted to Catholicism. Her Scottish father, Gerry Campbell, immigrated to Canada from Glasgow, Scotland, and taught high school drama classes at Lorne Park Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario. Campbell's maternal grandparents ran a theatre company in the Netherlands, and her paternal grandparents were also performers. Campbell has an older brother, Christian Campbell, and two younger half-brothers, Alex Campbell and Damian McDonald. Her parents divorced when she was two.

At age six, she saw a performance of The Nutcracker and decided she wanted to take ballet classes, enrolling at the Erinvale School of Dance. She later moved into residence at the National Ballet School of Canada, training there and appearing in performances of The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. After accumulating numerous dance-related injuries, she retired from ballet and took up acting at age 15, performing in The Phantom of the Opera at the Canon Theatre in Toronto while attending John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph, where she trained in acting and worked in theatre. One of her classmates was actress Tara Strong.

Campbell's early work included a 1980s Eaton's department store Christmas commercial and a 1991 Coca-Cola commercial; she promoted Coca Cola's sponsorship on Bryan Adams's Waking Up the Nation Tour (1991–1992). She made an uncredited cameo appearance on the series My Secret Identity in 1991. The next year, she played the minor role of Laura Capelli on an episode of The Kids in the Hall and landed her first starring role as Daisy in the Canadian drama series Catwalk. She subsequently made several guest appearances on various Canadian television shows, such as Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, both occurring in 1994.

With a desire to perform in Hollywood, Campbell went to Los Angeles to find a talent manager to represent her and ended up going on several auditions while she was doing so. One of these auditions was for Party of Five, which cast her in the role of orphaned teenager Julia Salinger, whereupon Campbell permanently relocated to the United States to play the role. Party of Five premiered in 1994 and went on to receive critical acclaim, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama in 1996. Campbell's performance on the series was lauded by critics and audiences alike; the series is considered her breakthrough role. After appearing on Party of Five for six seasons, she did not renew her contract for a seventh season so she could pursue film work, which led to the series' end in 2000.

Campbell's first widely released film was The Craft (1996). The movie was a surprise success, earning $55 million against a budget of $15 million. Her work in The Craft was noticed by director Wes Craven, who specifically asked her to audition for the role of Sidney Prescott in 1996's Scream, believing that the actress could be "innocent", but also handle herself once emotional and physical conflicts arose. Scream was released to major commercial and critical success, earning over $173 million at the worldwide box office which made it the highest-grossing slasher film until the release of Halloween in 2018. Her performance received significant critical praise. Variety magazine described Campbell as "charismatic", and the Los Angeles Times called both her acting and the character "iconic". For her performance, she won the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actress and the Saturn Award for Best Actress.