Neve Campbell: After Midnight

Sloe-eyed NEVE CAMPBELL smokes with a late-night fervor that suggests a dark side you don't get a hint of from the brunette girl-next-door she plays in "Party of Five."

__________________________________________

"With blondes, the assumption is that they're blonde bombshells and it's all about sexuality," Campbell is explaining to me. "With brunettes, they're considered the quiet types, the more innocent types, the more intelligent types. I don't mind being intelligent, it's fine. But it doesn't necessarily mean I always have to be innocent."

Campbell traded her innocence for physical beauty in the teen hit The Craft, then stepped into danger's way in Wes Craven's stalker thriller Screamwhich reteams her with The Craft's Skeet Ulrich. "Skeet Ulrich is all 'round sexy in this film," she says, but as for her own role"It's sort of innocent." Campbell has enough life experience under her belt to play more complicated types than the Innocent. At 23, she's already been married for nearly two years (to actor Jeff Colt). She's the veteran of an emotional breakdown at age 14 from pressures at the National Ballet School of Canada, but managed to join the Toronto cast of The Phantom of the Opera at 15.

Hell, she got her first kiss back at age seven. So, who does the young-but-not-really-so-young Campbell think is sexy? Not necessarily the young hunks she sees on the set every day, Scott Wolf and Matthew Fox. Her fantasies turn to older men. "Patrick Stewart is a damn sexy man," she says. "The bald head, first of all. And his accent. And Sean Connery! He's got this strength about him. It's in his eyes. I think you would feel very protected if you were with Sean Connery." What if she found herself sex-deprived? "I'd probably have to dance like eight hours a day just to get it out of my system. Or crunch on a lot of ice."

___________________________________________

Wolf Schneider