Starting her stage career as a ballet dancer, Neve Campbell danced in productions of The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty in her native Canada. She did some modeling and appeared in a 1991 commercial for Coca Cola.
In 1994, Neve was cast as orphan “Julia Salinger”” in the teen drama Party of Five. The show, and especially her work, was praised by critics and the media. In 1996, she made her first “horror”-leaning film, The Craft, which was a surprise success. Impressed by her role in The Craft, director Wes Craven asked her to audition for a role in his new project Scream, a sort-of self-aware spoof of slasher films. Neve embodied the role of “Sydney Prescott” and she was thrust into the “scream queen” spotlight. She took roles in other films and other genres, including voice-over work, but returned to several sequels in the Scream canon.