My name is Debbie Campbell. Go ahead, say it. Debbie Campbell.
I'm an actress. I'm cast as the girl you want to marry, not the girl you want to f*ck. My personal life might be another story, but onscreen I play good girls. Good girls who, way down deep, sometimes wish they were really bad.
Consider my role opposite Bea Arthur on the TV Land series Back to the Grind. I played a charming schoolteacher -- smart, sweet, a bit overwrought, and generally sensible. Having been an actual high school teacher for many years, I come to it easily.
Appearing alongside Mark Harmon and cast on NCIS I played a long-suffering girlfriend, who finally, after years and years of waiting, got Mr. Right to pop the question. Unfortunately, the spot he chose was already occupied by a decomposing body. If you want a scream that will chill you to your toes, I'm your girl.
Anthony LaPaglia and his team opened an investigation on Without a Trace when I played a mother whose son was tragically kidnapped and abused. Close your eyes and imagine the horror of losing your kid. After shooting the disappearance scene, everyone on the crew came up and told me they were going to hug their families extra hard that night.
I love having the opportunity to stand up onscreen for people whose voices aren't heard often enough off-screen. On David Mamet and Shawn Ryan's hit series The Unit, I played a rank-and-file Army wife who finally had enough -- and stood up in a group meeting and demanded change.
In David Frankel's CBS sitcom Grapevine, I managed to date not only George Eads but also David Sutcliffe in a single half-hour episode! Alas, neither relationship panned out. Sometimes I'm the girl you only want to date...once.
Behind the scenes, many prestigious companies have called on me to spearhead their artistic endeavors. I was a casting director at Universal Studios. I stage managed for the Florida Grand Opera. I spent several seasons with the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. I am a member of the acclaimed Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab. I've even produced shows at the Atlantis Resort & Casino in Paradise Island, Bahamas.
Why do I do it? Well, I believe that none of us can really see ourselves without the lens of drama. For me, the best moments onscreen are those when I experience an emotion that I once thought was particularly mine, and then realize that it is, in fact, a property of the public domain. I believe that art exists as a defense against the inevitable solitude of life. And so, I hope to be able to reach out to you, sitting alone out there in the dark, and invite you to the party. It's gonna be a real ball.