Actress Danielle Campbell owes a lot to George Clooney.
Not George Clooney the man, though — more like George Clooney the myth.
Last year, Campbell, then 18, was riding the roller coaster of TV’s pilot season, auditioning for show after show and booking nothing. Until: Clooney.
“It was a long pilot season, and by the end of it, I was worn out,” Campbell remembered. “My agent sent me out on this one last audition, and while he was driving he told me this story about George Clooney.
“He said that (Clooney) went on audition after audition after audition and he had always broken down the script and studied it really hard, but the second that he let go and just trusted that he knew the lines, that’s when he started booking everything, and so I was like, ‘All right, that’s what I am going to do.'”
That last audition was for CW’s “The Originals,” and she booked the series regular role of Davina, a 16-year-old, dangerously powerful witch. Note that the validity of the Clooney anecdote is questionable, but the story helped Campbell shed her nerves and land her most visible part to date.
Monday, Campbell and the entire “Originals” cast return for Season 2, which promises even more action than the first season. Set in an alternative world where vampires, witches and werewolves walk among humans, “The Originals,” a spinoff of “The Vampire Diaries,” follows the oldest family of vampires as it attempts to run the supernatural underworld of New Orleans.
When viewers last saw Campbell’s Davina, she resolved to take care of herself after feeling misled by just about everyone in her inner circle and cast all sorts of spells to ensure her safety.
Aside from her superhuman abilities, Davina is just a teenager navigating her way to adulthood, a life transition that Campbell, 19, can relate to, as she said recently over coffee at Uptown’s Dollop.
“I am still a girl who is growing up and finding herself, too, just like my character, Davina, is,” said Campbell, a 2013 graduate of Hinsdale Central. “She is a witch, but has a normal girl side to her that she is needing to figure out as well, and that’s the part I can relate to. The witchy stuff is just imagination, but that’s a lot of fun.”
Campbell, whose blue eyes could pierce a thick fog, has pouty lips and rounded cheeks that betray her age.
“She can play little girl and young woman at the same time,” said Julie Plec, creator and executive producer of “The Originals.” “And she’s got the goods, she can act. She can be emotional and she can get angry and she can be honest and truthful in her performances.
“I worked on ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Season 2 and she reminds me a lot of Katie Holmes, both in the way they look and her sweet demeanor,” Plec continued. “It was sort of a no-brainer casting her.”
While “The Originals” was a big booking in the sense that it allowed Campbell to move out on her own (she maintains an apartment in Atlanta, where the New Orleans-set show films), she has been performing professionally nearly half her life, starting with a Build-A-Bear commercial she filmed as a 10-year-old.
Campbell, who was discovered at a Chicago hair salon, has been outgoing and loquacious for as long as she can remember, she said.
“I grew up curious, and I always wanted to learn about different things,” she said. “I have a natural curiosity about the world and I just love to talk.”
Less than a week after signing with her first agent, Campbell landed that Build-A-Bear commercial, which quickly begot a five-episode arc on “Prison Break” and eventually a lead role in the Disney channel movie “StarStruck.”
“She was 14 at the time, and she had poise and presence beyond her years,” said Michael Grossman, director of “StarStruck.” “Although the other two people vying for the same part had a lot more experience, she beat them.
“You can learn how to act really well but can’t fake a star quality and there was a star-quality presence to her in the room,” he said.
Even with her higher profile, Campbell and her family (she has a brother, Johnny, who’s now 18) decided not to move to LA after “StarStruck,” opting to stay in Hinsdale and work during breaks from school.
“My parents thought it was really important that I grow up with the high school experience, because if I was going to continue acting there was always going to be time to do that,” Campbell said. “I think in this business you grow up quickly because you are surrounded by adults; you are needing to stay present and stay cautious of what you are saying. I have been working since I was 10, but I also went to public high school, so I know how to handle all of it.”
Despite her youthful energy, which is contagious in person, she’s had a sort of old soul for a while, she said, and many of her castmates agreed, adding it’s easy to forget that she’s 19.
“She carries herself with a level of class and maturity that is really beyond her age,” said Steven Krueger, who plays Josh, a vampire, on “The Originals.” “I think for a young actress her ability to connect emotionally with not just the material but with the other actors in the scene is remarkable.”
The emotional truth of Campbell’s character, an average 16-year-old who happens to be a witch, is parallel to her own truth: She was an average 16-year-old who just happened to spend her summers on film sets instead of at the mall. On the show Campbell deftly taps into the naivete and freshness of a sheltered girl that age.
“There is a vulnerability and a youth and an innocence that she has, which is wonderful for someone at her age,” said castmate Sebastian Roche, who portrays an older vampire named Mikael. “Some 19-year-olds are much more jaded at that age, but she has retained an amazing spirit for life. She is a very, very positive person. She has a great innocence, (but) under that innocent exterior, she has a very strong resolve. You see that in her acting. In some of the scenes where you think she might be vulnerable, there is a fire in her as well.”
Charles Michael Davis, another of Campbell’s co-stars, agreed: “She is pretty fearless. She brings all that she is to the character, which is nice because then it makes her a lot more relatable and a little bit more unpredictable, which means, as an actor, you really have to watch and listen.”
In addition to “The Originals,” Campbell is starring in “16 South,” an independent film looking to make the festival rounds next year.
Film is where she wants to end up, she said, but she’s interested in just about every role in the entertainment business.
“Down the line, I want directing and producing to be possibilities for me,” she said. “I would love to dive a little bit into all different parts (of the business), but for right now, I am focusing on acting.”
For Grossman, there’s no better place for her: “I felt like we found a star when we found Danielle for that part (in ‘StarStruck’), and I feel the same way today.”
Twitter: @courtneycare
‘The Originals’
7 p.m. Monday, CW
