Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26639
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Alice Drummond represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Alice is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alice Drummond appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alice. Awakenings is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for documentary, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Roger Kumble, Charlie Kaufman, John Patrick Shanley and others, Alice Drummond helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Awakenings (1990) as Lucy Fishman · Ghostbusters (1984) as Librarian · Synecdoche, New York (2008) as Actress Playing Frances
Career snapshot
Ranked #26639 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1984–2020
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Awakenings
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Awakenings
Most frequent director
Roger Kumble
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Roger Kumble
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.8
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1980s
7.6 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Ghostbusters — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Ghostbusters.
Most productive era
1990s
5 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.13 films | 6.94 films | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.21 film | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.61 film | 6.64 films | 6.51 film | 5.01 film | — |
| Crime | — | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.01 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.21 film | 6.31 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984Ghostbusters
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Librarian.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1990Awakenings
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2020Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters
The current state of the argument, as Self.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
12 of 12 films
as Lucy Fishman
Directed by Penny Marshall
as Librarian
Directed by Ivan Reitman
as Actress Playing Frances
Directed by Charlie Kaufman
as Sister Veronica
Directed by John Patrick Shanley
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Lucy Fishman
Awakenings (1990)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lucy Fishman gives Alice Drummond a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Librarian
Ghostbusters (1984)
Performance score7.4
Ghostbusters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Librarian is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Actress Playing Frances
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Performance score7.3
Synecdoche, New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Actress Playing Frances is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sister Veronica
Doubt (2008)
Performance score7.3
Doubt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sister Veronica is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Lucy Fishman
Start here. Awakenings is the clearest statement of what Alice Drummond does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alice at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Ghostbusters (1984)
A deliberate change of key after Awakenings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Keeps the comedy register of Ghostbusters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Keeps the drama register of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar but asks for a colder reading of it.
Doubt (2008)
Keeps the drama register of Synecdoche, New York but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghostbusters
John Harrison
Director
1 film together
Notably Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Awakenings
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Peter Hedges
Director
1 film together
Notably Pieces of April
John Patrick Shanley
Director
1 film together
Notably Doubt
Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Synecdoche, New York
Roger Kumble
Director
1 film together
Notably Furry Vengeance
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AwakeningsIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GhostbustersCharlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Synecdoche, New YorkJohn Patrick Shanley
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DoubtTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ace Ventura: Pet DetectivePeter Hedges
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pieces of AprilJohn Harrison
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tales from the Darkside: The MovieRoger Kumble
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Furry VengeanceSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Awakenings
as Lucy Fishman
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
I.Q.
as Dinner Guest
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Awakenings
as Lucy Fishman
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I.Q.
as Dinner Guest
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Awakenings
as Lucy Fishman
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Alice Drummond has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
36 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Ghostbusters
as Librarian
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Mrs. Finkle
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
I.Q.
as Dinner Guest
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Mrs. Finkle
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Awakenings
as Lucy Fishman
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
as Clara
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
I.Q.
as Dinner Guest
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Mrs. Finkle
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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