Neve
Campbell discusses her new movie, 'Company'
Neve Campbell is not easily cowed. Not by the big movie studio
that dallied with her dance-film dream. Not by the legendary
Robert Altman (whom she insisted attend ballet performances
before he directed her movie.) And not by dancing with the Joffrey
Ballet of Chicago.
"It was all intimidating," she says, "but it's
a matter of trusting that what you believe in is right."
Campbell, a dancer since childhood, was 23 when she envisioned
"The Company," an insider's view of ballet.
After six months of intense training, Campbell, now 30, took
on the role of Ry, a promising dancer with the Joffrey Ballet
of Chicago. Malcolm McDowell plays "Mr. A," the company's
artistic director, and James Franco is the chef who becomes
Ry's love interest.
"It was important to me to make this story," Campbell
says. "I feel like the dance world isn't as exposed as
it should be or appreciated in the way that it should be."
Born and raised in Ontario, she began dancing at age 6 and
trained with Canada's National School of Ballet from ages 9
to 14. She landed a role in "Phantom of the Opera"
the following year, which gave her the chance to act, and danced
professionally until age 19. The next year, she was cast as
Julia Salinger in the Fox TV series "Party of Five."
"And there really wasn't time to dance anymore. If you're
going to dance, you have to do it all the time," she says.
"Party of Five" ended its six-season run in 2000,
and then Campbell concentrated on a film career that included
the "Scream" movies, "Drowning Mona" and
"Wild Things." All the while, however, ballet remained
close to her heart. She began developing "The Company"
seven years ago and had Warner Bros. interested. But "I
realized I needed to do it on a smaller scale and took it away
from the studio. "That was probably the only bump. It really
affirmed that I needed to go for what I believed in, and I think
that empowered me to do it on a smaller scale and find the right
people for it." Barbara Turner ("Beautiful View"
and "Pollock") was one of the writers Warner Bros.
brought in to rewrite the script it had for Campbell's project.
Six months after Campbell took the movie from Warner Bros.,
she called Turner's agent and asked for a meeting. Campbell
"said she wanted to do a movie about truly what it was
like to be in a company, and she didn't want to be the star,
just a dancer," Turner says in a phone interview from her
Los Angeles home. Turner spent weeks at a time with Joffrey
dancers, who allowed her to record their conversations and gave
her access to their dressing rooms and backstage. Turner began
fashioning a slice-of-life script, and sent new pages to Campbell
weekly. All along, Campbell wanted the film to be "Altmanesque."
"You look at 'Nashville' or 'Gosford Park' or 'M*A*S*H,'
and he's so good at capturing 'worlds.' We knew from the beginning
Bob Altman would be right for it," Campbell says. Luckily,
Turner knew Altman and sent him the script. Turner called Campbell
a week later to say that Altman might want to direct. Campbell
laughs. "And then we spent a couple of months nagging him,"
she says. "I talked to him about the dance world and my
passion for it and why I thought (the film) would be interesting.
I ... told him to go to the Joffrey Ballet School in New York
and watch the dancers. "He did, because he was intrigued.
... He immersed himself. ...," she says. And once Campbell
saw her dream would be coming true, she resumed ballet training
while still working as an actress ("Blind Horizon,"
"Lost Junction" and "Churchill: The Hollywood
Years.") She trained eight and one-half hours a day for
the six months leading up to the start of filming on "The
Company." By then, she had won approval from Joffrey dancers
and choreographers.
"To be honest, at first they were apprehensive. Most dancers
feel there haven't been good dance films made, but once they
learned that I was a dancer and understood that I wanted to
make a realistic view of their world, they became a lot more
open," Campbell says. "And once I started dancing
with them, they were so supportive and amazing."
