Neve Campbell Auditioned For Her First Major Role To Chase A Different Career

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https://www.looper.com/2011053/neve-...-dance-career/

BY CYNTHIA VINNEY NOV. 1, 2025 2:18 PM EST

"Scream" star Neve Campbell is famous for her acting career, and one of her earliest roles she's best known for is Julia Salinger in the series "Party of Five." However, she didn't audition for it to get a six-year series regular role on a major TV show; she auditioned to get a green card. Campbell was a Canadian who came to the United States for more opportunities, but she didn't want to act — she wanted to dance. Things didn't quite work out that way. Instead, she was a major part of the show, as one of the five orphaned Salinger siblings.

"Party of Five" co-creator Amy Lippman told Vulture in a recent retrospective, "Julia was very hard to cast. ... Neve came in, and she seemed like a girl who had made a decision to be independent in a way, and that was intriguing to us. She didn't come in with her mother. She came in on her own."

While Campbell was definitely independent, it could have been because she didn't really care about the show. Campbell explained, "It was my second audition in Los Angeles, and I had come out to L.A. [from Canada] to be a professional dancer." She said that she wanted to do the pilot to get her green card, which would allow her to stay in the States and dance. "I didn't get my green card, I had a visa," she said. "And the show went for six years, which was not what I was expecting! And I didn't get to really dance on the show. That would have been pushing it, I think."