Neve Adrianne Campbell (born October 3, 1973 ) is a Canadian actress.
She is known for her performances in the horror and slasher genres, which has earned her recognition as a scream queen and in popular culture, and for playing roles in several comedy and drama projects.
She has won two Blockbuster Entertainment Awards for Best Actress, a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actress, a MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance, and a Saturn Award for Best Actress, among other accolades.
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 his native Glasgow, and taught high school drama classes 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 moved into 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.
1980
Campbell's early work included a 1980s Eaton's department store Christmas commercial, and a 1991 Coca-Cola commercial; she promoted the latter's sponsorship on Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Nation Tour (1991–1992).
1991
Campbell 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.
1992
Following a series of minor appearances, Campbell had a starring role in the drama series Catwalk (1992–1993) and the television film The Canterville Ghost (1996).
1994
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 became a teen idol and earned a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress.
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, described as "television's most believable teenager"; the series is credited as her breakthrough role.
1996
While on Party of Five, she starred in her first American feature film, headlining the supernatural blockbuster The Craft (1996).
Campbell Rose to international prominence for her leading role as Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven's slasher film Scream (1996), which emerged as a critical and commercial success—becoming the highest grossing slasher film for over 20 years—and obtained a cult following.
Her first widely released film was The Craft (1996), which she starred in alongside Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk and Rachel True.
The movie was a surprise hit, 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 psychical conflicts arose.
1997
The success of the film spawned the Scream franchise, for which she reprised her role in the series' second (1997), third (2000), fourth (2011), and fifth (2022) installments, playing the character for 25 years.
Campbell consistently garnered praise for her work in the series, and is one of the genre's highest-grossing and acclaimed heroines of all time.
1998
Campbell achieved further acclaim for starring in the neo-noir thriller film Wild Things (1998), the drama film 54 (1998), the crime film Drowning Mona (2000), the drama film Panic (2000), and the television feature Last Call (2002).
2000
After appearing on Party of Five for six seasons, Campbell did not renew her contract for a seventh season to pursue film work, which led the series' end in 2000.
2003
She produced, starred in, and wrote the story for the drama film The Company (2003).
2004
She went on to star in the drama When Will I Be Loved (2004), the comedies Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004) and Relative Strangers (2006), the romantic-drama Closing the Ring (2007), the comedy-drama Walter (2015), the action Skyscraper (2018), the drama Castle in the Ground (2019), and the musical drama Clouds (2020).
2009
Campbell returned to television with the NBC action drama series The Philanthropist (2009), and has since played Joanna Yaegar in the miniseries Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012), LeAnn Harvey in the Netflix political thriller series House of Cards (2016–2017), Margaret McPherson in the Netflix crime drama series The Lincoln Lawyer (2022–present), and Raven in the Peacock post-apocalyptic series Twisted Metal (2023).
She executive produced the documentary film Swan Song (2023).
2018
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 (2018).
Her performance received significant critical praise.
