THE journey from girl-next-door to heroine-turned-Sapphic-seductress then credible theatre actress may not have been easy, but Neve Campbell has made it work for her.
Born in Ontario to a Scottish immigrant father and a Dutch mother, Campbell admits: "I was always interested in performing from a young age. My mum was into the theatre and my dad was a drama teacher in Canada. He was raised in Glasgow until he was 1
0, so I used to hang out a lot with the Scottish troupe he used to work with in Canada, which was cool."
A trained ballerina, she was spotted by an acting talent scout as a teenager. The life-changing role of troubled teen Julia Salinger, in hit TV American show Party Of Five, followed in 1994, after leg injuries made it impossible for her to follow her dreams of becoming a world-class dancer. Two years later, the lead spot in Wes Craven's horror trilogy, Scream, confirmed her as a bona fide teen star. But Campbell had her own ideas about the pursuit of fame, and decided to play the long game by living off her Scream windfall and cherry-picking the parts that "meant something".
"I moved there (to LA] when I was 18, and I never felt I belonged exactly. Hollywood kind of took over my life for a while and I don't want that to happen again… I like my time in London (where she now lives with English actor husband, John Light]. It's a better fit. I was in LA for 13 years and I'm in no rush to go back."
Campbell would no doubt admit that her acting choices have not always been the safest. Although her breakthrough part as Sidney Prescott in Scream should have paved the way for mainstream movie stardom, rather than bask in the limelight, she opted to get steamy with Denise Richards in Wild Things' now infamous swimming pool scene, which still tops numerous polls for its sex factor. Though, to her credit, closer inspection of Campbell's repertoire suggests such offerings are far from the sum of her parts.
At the same time as dipping her toe into the indie film pool and titillating the masses, the actress was quietly lobbying Gosford Park director Robert Altman to direct a labour of love of her own making, called The Company, an ambitious behind-the-scenes snapshot of the ballet world. Altman finally agreed to take the helm in 2002, with Campbell producing. The actress would train for six months to get in shape to take the lead in 2003. While critics were divided on the final result, Campbell received serious kudos for getting Altman on board. She says now of the project: "I'm proud that I did it because it showed me that I was capable of something greater. That matters."
These days the 34-year-old continues to blur the lines between personal interests and fiction, as her forthcoming role as peacekeeper and environmentalist in the two-part BBC2 eco-thriller, Burn Up, shows. Living in London has made her a "little braver", she says, and has opened up surprising doors.
The minute she read the script for the drama she knew she wanted the part of Holly Dernay, a ballsy environmentalist working for a renewables division of an oil company. Ambitious for such a small-screen project and penned with trademark care by Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy, the drama is set in Saudi Arabia, London and Canada, and tackles the weighty issue of global warming. Some fine scripting from Beaufoy and acting support from West Wing star Bradley Whitford and Spooks actor Rupert Penry-Jones make for credible results.
"It felt timely and it felt like something that was really important to talk about," says Campbell. "Global warming is not going away. It's a problem that grows day after day."
An outspoken advocate for the cause, Campbell presented the UK leg of Live Earth, and for one who likes to stay out of the media glare, she's happy to lend her voice where she thinks it matters.
"You need to have courage and strength, I think, to create this kind of project with this sort of political message, and everyone involved had that. For whatever reason, people tend to listen more nowadays to celebrities than politicians.
"I think the challenge is not making people feel like they're being spoon-fed information because they lose interest and move on to the next thing. That said, it's important to stay true to what you believe in and go with that."
She continues: "For me it's now about trying to find good roles that either excite or challenge me and my expectations. After Party Of Five, and especially after Scream, the mainstream roles I was offered didn't seem to have that much substance. I knew I had to make a decision."
With two new projects in the pipeline, including a mini-series period drama adaptation of the Jack London novel The Sea Wolf with Tim Roth, Campbell seems content as long as she keeps raising the bar.
"I just want to play parts that I believe in; the rest of it you can keep. In this business all you can do is stay true to yourself and hope people enjoy some of your work along the way." v
Burn Up, BBC 2, Wednesday and Friday, 9pm
The full article contains 907 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
