Neve Campbell Is Still the Reigning Queen of Scream

If you came of age in the late ‘90s, there’s a good chance Neve Campbell’s signature chestnut bob and concerned, piercing gaze defined your formative cinematic experiences. Perhaps you saw her play a shy burn victim-turned-witch in the cult classic The Craft. Or maybe you watched, in total awe, as she kissed Denise Richards while portraying a manipulative outcast in Wild Things. And if both of those performances somehow passed you by, there’s no way in hell you didn’t see her star as Sidney Prescott, the ultimate final girl in Wes Craven’s iconic slasher, Scream, and its sequel, Scream 2. Interestingly, all four of those movies came out within a two-year stretch, between 1996 and 1998, solidifying Campbell as one of the decade’s biggest—and most talked-about—stars.

Neve Campbell at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards in Santa Monica, Calif.

When Canadian-born Campbell was cast as Sidney Prescott, a strong and steady high schooler merely just trying to survive the wrath of a murderous Ghostface killer, she was only 22 years old, and though it was her first starring role, she never could have known that she’d go on to live with the character for over 25 years, reprising her in four sequels. Scream, the fifth film and first iteration since Craven’s death in 2015, premieres Jan. 14. She also had no idea that she was about to be catapulted to a level of fame so high that, within the span of a year, she would break box office records, host Saturday Night Live, and appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.

“That height of fame was not something a 22-year-old really knows how to handle,” she says during a Zoom conversation, conducted in late 2021 from the comfort of her children’s room, where bunk beds sit behind her. (Campbell is mother to sons Caspian, 9, and Raynor, 3, with partner JJ Feild.) “I was lucky that I was working so much that I didn’t get lost. I see a lot of celebrities when they’re at that height fall down the rabbit hole, whether it’s addictions or breakdowns.” Instead of partying, Campbell says during that time she worked 15 or 16 hours a day for ten months a year filming Party of Five, the acclaimed Fox TV series that launched her career, and spent her “time off” appearing in movies.

Neve Campbell at the 1997 MTV Movie Awards in Santa Monica, Calif.

Neve Campbell starring on Party of Five in 1998.

“This will tell you how tired I was,” she starts. “I was in a car with my manager and my publicist and my manager said, ‘Tell her, tell her,’ to my publicist. And he goes, ‘I’m really excited to tell you: I got you Rolling Stone.’ And I went, ‘What? I’m so tired. I don’t want to do another photo shoot.’ I had no idea what a big deal it was to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.”

Spoiler alert: She did the shoot—obviously—and while the cover line read “Neve Campbell: Red-Hot Party Girl,” the accompanying profile and Campbell’s recollection of her youth are basically the opposite. To clarify, before landing Party of Five, Campbell was born and raised in Guelph, Canada, before training as a ballerina at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto. “I was just dancing, dancing, dancing—I was very disciplined and it was kind of insular,” she says. She didn’t pay much attention to pop culture and was definitely not a horror film buff. (The Changeling freaked her out too much.)

But landing Scream changed everything. Campbell was enamored by the hilarious meta script written by Kevin Williamson (who then went on to create the beloved teen drama Dawson’s Creek), and the originality of the scares—a trademark Craven move. In hindsight, it’s no surprise that the 1996 film was a megahit, becoming the highest-grossing slasher film in the world until 2018. All that success, though, meant that Campbell kept getting offers to star in even more scary movies. “I was never going to do another horror movie because I already made the best one,” she says. “Why would I downgrade?”

It’s a fair question. So she ditched Hollywood for a while as a way to recalibrate. Scream 3 was released in 2000 and three years later, Campbell moved to England for seven years, where she dove into the theater community. “I learned a great deal about myself and craft,” she says. “I immersed myself in a different way that is really hard to do in the States.” When she started looking for on-screen roles again, this time, the offers were different and came in the form of prestige TV: She made a memorable guest appearance on Mad Men and landed a recurring role on House of Cards. “I was suddenly out of that young ingenue thing and I was seen more as a grown woman. The rules are more interesting with these roles.”

Neve Campbell reprising her role as Sidney Prescott in the fifth installment of Scream.

Ride-or-die Scream fans will likely agree with Campbell’s assessment. Watching Sidney grow from a timid high schooler with so many boy problems into a knife (and gun)-wielding badass who mentors a younger generation of Woodsboro teens trying not to die has been a fascinating and emotional journey. Instead of just fighting for her life when Ghostface returns, she’s sharing life-or-death wisdom, institutional knowledge, and escape routes that might actually work. (Check out Scream 4, which premiered in 2011 and was the first film in the franchise to show Sidney as part of the older generation, to see her experienced wits at work.) Though Campbell can’t share much about the new Scream’s plot, she does reveal that Sidney is now a mother, which brings out a whole other level of survivalism. “As a mom, the idea of anything threatening your children will be dire for her.”

But Campbell did need a little convincing to come back and reprise her role, especially without Craven in charge. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the directors behind another cheeky slasher film Ready or Not, helm the film and ultimately won her over with a letter about how much Scream impacted their work and how they hoped to treat her character and the story.

Still, it took lengthy negotiations for Campbell to officially sign on. “Only in the past few years have I felt confident to ask [for more money] because I used to be told, ‘Oh you can’t ask,’” she says. “I wonder if I’d been a male working on the fifth film of this franchise, if it would’ve been the same conversation in my negotiation. We got there in the end, but I feel like it would have been different if I was a man. I honestly do.”

Courteney Cox, Jamie Kennedy, and Neve Campbell in Scream (1996)

Ghostface in Scream (2022).

Reprising the role of Sidney once again means stepping back into the shoes of a woman who has had an enormous impact on viewers. “It’s always surprising to me to have people come up and say, ‘Sidney Prescott changed my life. She made me feel more confident. She made me less of a victim. She made me take action,’” says Campbell. “You don’t expect that when you make a film like this, especially in this genre.”

Sidney might not have that impact on people were it not for Campbell’s portrayal, rife with vulnerability, intelligence, and a palatable dose of humor. The character may not always make the right moves, but she is fearless and desperate to survive no matter what—even if it means killing a few baddies along the way. That soft confidence is why, when you settle in to watch a Scream film, knowing that half of the characters will be sliced and diced by the end credits, you hope that maybe, just maybe, Sidney Prescott will make it out alive.