NEVE CAMPBELL 1996
When Party of Five was being cast, it was the role of Julia Salinger that was the hardest to fit…until Neve Campbell walked into Fox’s offices… and was signed on the spot. Toronto-born Neve, 22 (pronounced like “rev”) was destined to act. Her father’s a drama teacher and both her mother and older brother Christian are actors (her mom now runs a yoga studio).
Although Julia is seven years Neve’s junior, Neve can relate to the drastic changes Julia faces ‘cos she also experienced a rocky upbringing. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, and both remarried and divorced again. “It wasn’t a horrible situation, but your forced to grow up a little more quickly,”
Neve says. “I like playing Julia because she rings true. I was like Julia – never fitted in.” In fact, Neve swears she was a dag at school. “I was pretty much a loser. I had absolutely no friends.”
But the Neve of today is another story.
She’s a confident young woman who’s down-to-earth about Party of Five and happily married – she wed her childhood sweetheart, Jeff Colt, a year ago. And who could want more in a day’s work than hanging out with lush babes Scott Wolf and Matthew Fox? But Neve laughs at the idea of them as sexy. “I feel like they’re my brothers. I can’t see them in that light.” Neve’s career is definitely on a roll. This month she stars in the movie The Craft, a tale of four young misfits who use witchcraft to get popular. Neve plays Bonnie, a teenager with a taste for black lipstick whose witches’ coven starts getting nasty when one of the witches defects … But it seems Neve’s been casting the right spells over her career lately. “Things have happened quickly for me – and they can stop as quickly as they started. But right now … I feel wonderful.”
Kate Jobling