NEW YORK -- Neve Campbell isn't all sweetness and light like her TV character.

For one thing, Party Of Five's anxiety-prone Julia Salinger would never have to "tweak" her humor to spare others. But 23-year-old Campbell had to.

"When I first came to L.A.," recalls the Toronto-born-and-raised actor, "I had to change my very cynical and sarcastic humor. I put a few girls in tears, because they didn't understand."

That's only one adjustment. She also married her boyfriend Jeff Colt.

Seems like grown-up stuff, but Campbell wants to stay young. She's just not too sure how long she wants to play a teenager.

If it means work, though, the L.A. resident doesn't mind that much. And work she does.

She was featured in the teen flick, The Craft, released last May, and she's the lead in Wes Craven's latest terror spectacle, Scream, which opens Dec. 20.

In Scream -- which mixes horror and humor -- Campbell plays a high school kid who is the target of a knife-wielding maniac.

"I screamed at Scream a couple of times," she says, laughing at her timidity during a screening.

As an actor she got to do some physical jumping and running things, something her Party Of Five character rarely would.

"But I'm a dancer," says Campbell, referring to her adolescent years when she trained at the National Ballet School of Canada.

"I didn't have much trouble picking up on the physical stuff. I was begging Wes to let me do more stunts, but he wouldn't let me."

What Campbell did get to do was cork Courteney Cox, who plays a TV tabloid reporter in Scream.

"That was fun," says Campbell. "I got to punch someone."

Meanwhile, back at Party Of Five, Campbell says that she's grateful to the series, but looking beyond it, too.

"It's really important to get my face out there in front of different characters," says Campbell, who is considering an undisclosed film role for her summer hiatus.

On the other hand, she says that Party Of Five "has been a huge springboard."

Certainly, Campbell remembers less thrilling days.

Like when she first arrived in L.A. three years ago for some grip-and-grin sessions with potential movie and TV producers.

"It was the week after the big earthquake and nobody would let me in the door," she says.

She persevered, however. "I got Party Of Five a few weeks later."

Bad luck turned to good even earlier in her career at the Toronto-based National Ballet School, where maybe three applications out of 2,000 are accepted every year.

"And every year," recalls Campbell, "they send you a letter letting you know if you can stay."

At 14, after four years of incredible pressure, Campbell finally had had enough. She quit. "I basically had a nervous breakdown."

But six months later, she also landed her first professional job -- the ballerina in Phantom Of The Opera.

"The school was very tough," says Campbell. "It was really intense, had a lot of favoritism, lots of competition and lots of backstabbing."

Like Hollywood? "Like Hollywood in a few little dance studios."


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