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• Bio on Ms. Campbell
• Article on Ms. Campbell
• When Will I Be Loved official site

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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome the beautiful and talented Neve Campbell to the show tonight. The former 'Party of Five' star has gone on to great success in film, both as an actress and a producer, I might add. Her latest movie is called 'When Will I Be Loved.' I got to see this. Directed by James Toback. And here's a scene from 'When Will I Be Loved.'

Vera: Leading up to your own indecent proposal?

Ford: I didn't make any proposal.

Vera: Nah. But you discussed me with him.

Ford: Yeah?

Vera: And money came up in the discussion?

Ford: Money always comes up in discussions with the count.

Vera: Did he tell you he wanted to meet me?

Ford: Yes, he did.

Vera: And what did you say?

Ford: I said I was sure you'd be fascinated with the stories he has to tell and that you'd probably enjoy exposing yourself to someone as accomplished as he is.

Vera: Is that the phrase you used? 'Exposing myself'?

Ford: Yeah, but that's not the point. Then he said something like--he said he would like to give you, as a token of his appreciation for your loveliness, $100,000.

Vera: Which I assume you assume I would give to you.

Tavis: Neve, that is not the point.

Neve Campbell: Ha ha!

Tavis: The point is he offered $100,000.

Neve: Uh-huh.

Tavis: How are you?

Neve: I'm good. Thank you.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.

Neve: Very nice to see you.

Tavis: You better explain that clip.

Neve: Explain the clip? Ha ha!

Tavis: Somebody's offered you $100,000 to get naked?

Neve: Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, a proposal that's been made by someone named Count Tommaso Lupo, played by Dominic Chianese, and he's an older gentleman who has quite a bit of money and has been taken by me and meets Ford--Fred Weller, plays my boyfriend--and Fred decides that he's gonna make the proposal to me for money. Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah. Uh, hot stuff, hot stuff. And speaking of hot stuff, this movie starts with you doing a nude scene and ends with you doing a nude scene. So when I saw that, I had to go back and do a little research to find out whether you had done nude stuff before--I didn't think you had--and what you had said heretofore about the possibility of doing...

Neve: Yes.

Tavis: Nude stuff. So I found an interesting, you know, array of comments you'd made along the way about what you would ever do if you were asked or had the opportunity to do something like this. Why then, with that said, did you decide to make this that film?

Neve: Well, I always had an issue with nudity in films where I felt like those scenes were solely, um, being shot for box-office draw, you know. I think in some cases that is the truth. In certain films, you realize that it's got nothing to do with the story line itself and is, you know, solely just for the audience pleasure and to get people to come in and pay the tickets.

But in this film, it's got a lot to do with the character itself and with, you know, this sort of sexual exploration that my character is going through. She's a very curious person. She's a very intelligent person, but very curious in many different ways, and the manipulation within the film is about sexuality, and it's about her strength. And so to me, it made sense that you see her in this very raw place at the beginning of the film, and you see this sort of vulnerability but also a curiosity and a strength and then also finish with that. It made sense to me in this one.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. This movie's also an independent film. We call it 'indie.' An indie film, as we call it here in Hollywood. You've done the big blockbuster, big-budget stuff. You obviously have had TV fame, and now you've done this particular indie film. I don't want to ask necessarily why you decided to do this point--do this film at this point in your career. But tell me how an indie film, a smaller film, fits into what it is you're trying to do over the long term with your career?

Neve: I don't really--and maybe this is not the smartest thing--but I don't really think about long-term in that way. For me, it's really about the script itself and the character, and challenging myself, and who am I gonna be working with, and do I find that there's something to learn here, or there's a piece that I'm very interested in doing, or actors that I'm gonna work with that'll be great. For me, it's more about that and wanting to grow as an artist and explore different people and different kinds of characters. I don't really think of, 'Oh, I need to take this step to become more commercial again and do a blockbuster.' If I don't like the script, I can't do it.

Tavis: But doing an indie film, a film that isn't going to be, you know, didn't have a $200-million budget and didn't have all this media hype and studio hype--does that in any way--I could be totally off base here. If I am, tell me--does that give you any--I'm trying to find the right word here--any sort of freedom or flexibility or space that something--that a bigger film might not give you?

Neve: Absolutely. It gives you a lot of freedom. And we shot this film in 12 days. I think the budget was just over a million, if that. And because you don't have a studio over your head saying, 'We don't like this scene or these lines or this character, you know, we don't want to see a female be this strong and this passionate, but also somewhat evil in a way,' you know? There are those concerns from the studios. Um, you get the opportunity to have freedom and--

Tavis: Or, for that matter, yelling, 'More nudity! More nudity!' Yeah. Ha ha.

Neve: Exactly, and then it doesn't feel like it's your choice, you know?

Tavis: 'Take it off, Neve! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!'

Neve: Exactly. Um, so with this, we had freedom. I mean, when James came to me--I love James Toback. I think he's really daring with his filmmaking, and I think his language is really good as well. He's extremely eloquent. His writing is really good. And when he came to me, there were 35 pages of a script and an idea, and so it really was a collaboration between James and myself and the other actors to come up with the story and to come with these characters, and that is fun.

Tavis: And by the time you got done with it, 35 pages turned into what?

Neve: Well, then it turned into a full script, so, over 100. But, you know, that was a fun process. Never on a studio film would you have the writer go home and write scenes at night after you've had a discussion, come to you in the morning, hand you the scenes, and you learn the lines and do it that day. And that's fun as an actor to have that kind of freedom, or, you know, to be able to say to James, 'This doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel true to Vera. Can we try something different?' And he was just so open about it. It was great.

Tavis: I probably shouldn't tell this story on the air. I'm playing myself, so...before we came on the air, Neve walks on the set--I love that name, by the way, Neve. I want to learn about that name in a second. So, Neve walks on the set, and we're about to start our conversation, and she says to me, after a couple of seconds of conversation, she says, 'Where are you from?' I'm, like, I know what that means. So, she's doggin' me, she's baggin' on me about my accent. I'm, like, 'You know what? I've worked my entire life on television and radio to not sound like a country hick--a hick from country Indiana in the Midwest. So, Neve picks on my accent immediately, which I've been trying to get rid of. I raise that only because you are from Canada, and you said to me in the very next breath, 'Don't worry about it. I've been working my whole life to get rid of my Canadian accent.' So, you got some pointers for me on how one gets rid of an accent?

Neve: Ha ha ha! Um, a coach is good. An accent coach. 'Cause sometimes there are certain habits you don't even realize you have, you know?

Tavis: Certain words.

Neve: Yeah, certain words that they'll point out. Like, I still say, 'mum.' I sometimes say, 'aboat' and 'hoase.' Those kinds of things.

Tavis: That was 'mom.' I think I heard 'mom,' 'about,' and 'house.' That's what I thought.

Neve: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: You see? I heard it. Tell me more about that, though, about how you got from Canada to being a major TV star here in the States.

Neve: I was a dancer first. I was a ballet dancer. I did 7 different forms of dance, but I started out in ballet when I was 6, and, um, was a professional ballet dancer, and started doing television and film in Canada, around 15 or 16. And when I was 19, I'd done a movie of the week in Canada, and the producers just said, 'You know, the next step for you is to go out and meet the network in L.A., and you should probably go find a manager or an agent.' And I said, 'OK.' I hadn't really thought about it that much.

Tavis: Why not? Nothing better to do.

Neve: Yeah. Sure. Ha ha ha! So I came out, and I came out not at a good time. I came out 2 weeks after the big earthquake.

Tavis: Back in '94.

Neve: Yeah. And so a lot of the offices, the agencies and management companies were closed down.

Tavis: Literally.

Neve: Literally closed down or had fallen down. And I met this woman, Arlene Forester. She was working the same offices as the producers from the movie of the week. She said, 'I know you're looking for someone. Why don't I send you out on a few things while you're here,' and I said, 'Great, fantastic.' And she sent me out on very few things, three things, one of which was 'Party of Five.' And so I got 'Party of Five' within a couple of weeks. I was really lucky.

Tavis: I hate people like you.

Neve: I know!

Tavis: Some girls have all the luck.

Neve: I know. Very lucky. It's all about timing as well, it really is. But obviously, I'm still with Arlene, and things go well.

Tavis: I mentioned at the top of our conversation that you're not just an actor but you're also a producer. Why get into that aspect of the business? I know I--I don't want to prejudge your answer. I think I know where you're going with this. Why the producing thing? What's that doing for you at this point in your career?

Neve: it's hard to find good scripts. There's very few good scripts out there.

Tavis: I was right. I knew you were gonna say that.

Neve: yeah. So for me, instead of sitting around and getting frustrated about the business and Hollywood and they only want to do this kind of movie and they only want women to be perceived in this way, I think I should just try to develop things myself.

I produced a film maybe 7 years ago, my brother Christian Campbell and I produced a movie together for some friends from Canada. And we really learned the basics of, you know, getting the crew together and putting camera packages together and lighting packages and all of that, and learned how to do it. And then the next step for me was coming up with an idea, and that was 'The Company,' actually, the film that I finally did with Robert Altman. And it was a fantastic experience, because I got to be a part of the whole process and really create something that I love and that meant something to me and that I felt I could do something good with. So I enjoy that feeling. I enjoy sort of bringing the puzzle pieces together--

Tavis: It's a challenge, though.

Neve: It's a great challenge.

Tavis: You want to do more of this?

Neve: Yeah, absolutely. I'm developing a couple of other projects now, and, yeah, it's work. It took me 7 years to get the company out. It takes a while.

Tavis: So back to this conversation about the name. I love the name Neve.

N-e-v-e. Where'd that come from?

Neve: My mother's from Amsterdam and her maiden name is Neve. In Amsterdam, it's Nefia. But, yeah, she gave it to me as my first. Yeah.

Tavis: What do you like about where you are at this point in your career? And I ask that because after 'Party of Five'--we all got to know you, of course, from 'Party of Five'--life goes on. You gotta find, as you said earlier, more creative things to do, other work to do. What are you enjoying about this part of your life where you are trying to find out what that is?

Neve: Yeah. What I enjoy about this point in my career is, you know, earlier on I had a lot of people telling me this is what you need to do to really have your career stay solid and stay on track, and I was getting a lot of opinions from people, so I think I felt somewhat lost or out of control of my own career.

I've gotten to a place now where absolutely I trust the people that I work with. But for me I've become less conscious of, 'Oh, I shouldn't go do that little movie because it's gonna make it seem as though I can't get big movies,' you know. There's these weird perceptions that happen in Hollywood. There's this idea that if you go do a play for 6 months, that means you can't get a job in film, that's why you're doing a play, and that's not the case. I want to do theater. I want to make little films. I want to make things that interest me. And I feel good about having that freedom now and that sense of myself, I think.

Tavis: Neve Campbell's in control. Neve, nice to see you.

Neve: Nice to see you. Thank you.

Tavis: The film is 'When Will I Be Loved,' starring Neve Campbell. Check it out. September 10th. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles, and keep the faith.