Interview: Neve Campbell
A FILM CREW HAS GATHERED ON a scraggly beach near Miami, where Neve Campbell, nice girl, is about to morph into Suzie Toller, a booze-swillin’ three-some-lovin’ ex-con from Florida. Dressed in standard wrong-side-of-the-tracks wear (thin tank top, dye job, cutoffs, cheap rings on every finger), Campbell stands with Denise Richards, the comely actress who plays Kelly Van Ryan, a wealthy, popular teen. A light breeze, redolent of dead crab, stirs up the enthused mosquitoes. Places, everyone. Rolling.
Campbell paces frantically. “You don’t know Duquette,” she says. “I’m the one he busted. He’s a fucker, man. He’ll fuck us both over. I’m not going back to that prison. That’s what it was — a fucking hellhole.”
Richards: “Believe me, Suzie, this dickhead’s not going to send you anywhere. Stay strong, and he can’t do shit.”
Campbell [agitated]: “Man, I wanna smoke a joint.” [Stalks off.]
Most people know Neve Campbell as Julia Salinger, the girl next door on the heart-warming family drama Party of Five, or as Sidney, the imperiled teen in Scream (which, when you think about it, is Party of Five with a serial killer). Now they will know her — and, hopefully, come to love her — as Suzie, in her third feature, next spring’s Wild Things. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that this is a psychosexual drama.
WHEN SHOOTING FOR THE SCENE has been completed, the crew relaxes, chats and applies Off. Richards banters with the assistant director. But Campbell, parting the ratty sea grass, vanishes into her trailer. Neve? The path leading to it is short but atmospheric. With every footfall, a squadron of grasshoppers leaps as one, while unknown creatures skitter around in the undergrowth.
The door swings open. “Can I get you anything?” she asks. “Herbal tea?” Inside there’s a sort of wholesome, New Age vibe: incense, dried flowers, the herbal teas, CDs of Celtic music, a little white dog named Buster. Campbell has become adept at turning her trailers into miniature homes — this summer, in between the third and fourth seasons of Party of Five, she has shot two films back-to-back: the aforementioned Wild Things, co-starring Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon, and Scream 2, the sequel to Wes Craven’s surprise hit, in which there is a movie-within-a-movie based on Campbell’s experiences in Scream. “I’m doing the last weeks of Scream 2 and the beginning of Party of Five at the same time,” she says. “I’ll be doing seven-day weeks. I’m trying not to think about it.”
Even though she’s done up like trailer trash and is very thin (she’s on a special diet to simulate hard livin’), Campbell is still fresh faced and pretty, complete with freckles, hazel eyes and a body toned by years of ballet. She is friendly and genuine, the embodiment of her favorite word: positive.
“I’m able to grasp the concept of everything in life as a learning experience,” she will say, “whether it be negative or positive. If you can look at it in a positive way and learn something from it, then it is a positive.” She is also, as everyone who knows her will tell you, disciplined, focused and more mature than her 23 years. Rather than coast on her TV status with easy big-screen roles (she could, after all, drive down Matt LeBlance Wacky-Chimp-Movie Boulevard), she chose Wild Things, she says, to challenge herself and to avoid being pigeonholed. “I wanted someone who’s a lot less innocent than Julia Salinger,” she says firmly. And, indeed, it’s likely that Julia won’t make out with a girl in the coming season. “I got to kiss Denise in the film,” says Campbell, smiling. “It was fun.” She shrugs her shoulders rakishly. “We just sorta went in and did it.” She pauses. “Actually, we mixed margaritas and brought a bottle of wine in my trailer and got drunk first,” she adds.
Before the kissing scene with Richards, Campbell wrote a journal entry. This is it, roughly paraphrased: “Ok, I’m gonna make out with a girl for the first time in my life. It’s so interesting that a lot of times you learn things about yourself and have new experiences when shooting a scene, because they’re things you wouldn’t normally do in your life.”
Later in the film, Campbell reports, “there’ll be a three-some with Matt Dillon and Denise and me.” Rock on! “I am keeping my clothes on,” she adds. “It’s not about graphic sex.” But …it’s a ménage à trois! “It’s more about the characters and how lost and free they are.” Jeez.
Interview: Neve Campbell, Page 1 of 4