Following in the footsteps of parents George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst who were first and foremost stage actors, the classically-chiseled Campbell Scott began his career on Broadway as a soldier in "The Queen and the Rebels" (1982), starring his mother, then acted on the Great White Way in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" (1984) and in a revival of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" (1985). After landing the large supporting role of Richard Rich in an Off-Broadway revival of Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" (1986), he snagged his first leading part in an Off-Broadway production of "Copperhead" (1987) before co-starring with his mother in the 1988 Broadway revivals of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night". The New York Times critic Frank Rich referred to him as "the impressive Edmund" in the latter, saying that the great strength of the production was the way it "illuminates one parent-child axis--Mary and Edmund--brilliantly." His theatrical work would slow as his film career heated up, but he would still essay the role of "Hamlet" in two regional productions during the 90s, as well as acting in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" in 1991.
Scott made his film debut with a small role in "Five Corners" (1987), but it was his memorable turn as a man who watches most of his friends die of AIDS in "Longtime Companion" (1989) that first generated "buzz" about his film persona. He joined John Malkovich and Debra Winger in the North African desert for Bernardo Bertolucci's vividly atmospheric attempt to capture Paul Bowles' novel "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), and though the picture satisfied neither fans of the book nor those ignorant of the source material, some considered Bertolucci's inclusion of Bowles' gentle, distinctive presence onscreen as a semi-surreal, Chorus-like narrator nearly worth the price of admission. Scott starred as a terminally ill young man in "Dying Young" (1991), which not even co-star Julia Roberts could propel to commercial success, but fared better as Kyra Sedgwick's earnest love interest in Cameron Crowe's Gen-X romantic comedy "Singles" (1992). He further displayed his versatility essaying a British technician who gets involved with a mysterious woman (Isabella Rossellini) in the Cold War Berlin of "The Innocent" (1993; released in USA in 1995) and in Alan Rudolph's underrated "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994), giving a strong performance as writer and wit Robert Benchley, particularly in his recreation of Benchley's famous "Treasurer's Report" monologue.
Dismayed at finding himself typecast in features as young, sensitive types, Scott took a cue from his father's career and moved behind the camera to share directing chores with high school pal Stanley Tucci on the acclaimed "Big Night" (1996). The chamber piece about two immigrant brothers with differing views and attitudes toward life in America was a visual feast offering Scott in an astringent cameo as a slick car salesman. He served as executive producer on Greg Motolla's independent "The Daytrippers" (1997), which featured Tucci and a brief appearance from Scott himself, before taking on the role of an ordinary man who finds himself an unwitting party to extraordinary, potentially lethal circumstances in David Mamet's sleight-of-hand thriller "The Spanish Prisoner" (1998). Given Mamet's theater background, Scott was quite at home in the verbally-driven terrain of the film and completely sympathetic as the befuddled, naive victim of a host of sharpies led by Steve Martin. He also turned up that year in Tucci's solo directing effort, "The Imposters", playing the Nazi-like staff overlord of the luxury ship on which the titular characters stowaway.
Though he had played Courtney Cox's ex-boyfriend on an a 1987 episode of "Family Ties" (NBC) and roles in the ABC miniseries "The Kennedys of Massachusetts" (1990, as the tragically short-lived Joe Jr.) and the Civil War drama "The Perfect Tribute" (ABC, 1991, as an impassioned, dying Confederate captain), Scott's TV work was minimal prior to 1998 when he acted in two quality projects for the small screen. Rejoining Jennifer Jason Leigh, his co-star (as Dorothy Parker) in "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle", he delivered a compelling, credible performance as a 20th-century computer games designer who falls in love with a 19th-century poet in the time-traveling romance "The Love Letter" (CBS). He joined Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley in John Schlesinger's "The Tale of Sweeney Todd" (Showtime), playing the American insurance investigator seeking the truth about the demon barber of Fleet Street and his unsavory business partner.
Continuing to eschew studio pictures, Scott hit the jackpot in some wonderfully quirky, independent features. He anchored John Paisz's cool, sci-fi parody, "Top of the Food Chain" (1999), as its uptight, bearded and bespectacled atomic scientist who just might be eating the local citizenry. At the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, he was featured in three films, doing his best with the unsympathetic role of pro-golfer and ex-con Lionel 'Ex' Exley in Caroline Champetier's visually vivid but underdeveloped "Lush" and delivering a nifty supporting turn as a condescending philanthropist who earns the contempt of stars Ned Beatty and Liev Schreiber in "Spring Forward" (which actually had debuted at the Toronto Film Festival the previous fall). Perhaps his most outrageous performance to date came as the menacing, wildly unpredictable friend of a straight-laced yuppie (David Aaron Brown) in Dan McCormack's "Other Voices". He also made his solo directing debut at the helm of "Final" (lensed 1999), which he shot on digital video, and followed up by adapting, helming and starring in yet another screen version of "Hamlet" (lensed 2000).
After turns in a handful of minor films, Scott won critical accolades for his impressive, bravura turn as the lead in "Roger Dodger" (2002), in which he plays a slick, fast-talking, urbane Manhattanite who takes his 16-year-old nephew on the town in hopes of leading him into a world of sexual discovery, only to demonstrate how wholly clueless, insensitive and misanthropic he really is. The film was a major hit at the Sundance Film Festival. Scott stepped behind the camera to direct his third feature, “Off the Map” (2005), a well-reviewed drama about an eccentric family (Joan Allen, Sam Elliott and Valentina DeAngelis) living on the fringe of society in the New Mexico desert whose lives are altered by an IRS agent (Jim True-Frost) suffering from inner demons that eventually dissipate into sparse, idyllic land. Scott next played a Catholic priest with a rebel streak in the indie coming-of-age drama, “Saint Ralph” (2005). The priest inherits an adolescent (Adam Butcher) onto his cross-country team and encourages to boy to run the 1954 Boston Marathon as a means of coping with his mother’s illness.
After appearing in the family adventure, “Duma” (2005), a warm, if hokey, tale about a young boy (Alex Michaeletos) and his cheetah friend, Scott played a prosecutor attempting to put a priest (Tom Wilkenson) accused of accidental death after a failed exorcism in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” (2005). Scott then signed on to the Hallmark Channel move-of-the-week, “Final Days of the Planet Earth,” set to be released sometime in 2006.