Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9268
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Anna Deavere Smith represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 30 years in, and Anna is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Anna Deavere Smith appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Anna. A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 romance, action, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dexter Fletcher, Lena Khan, Billy Crystal and others, Anna Deavere Smith 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.
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote (2020) as Nancy McNally · Philadelphia (1993) as Anthea Burton · Here Today (2021) as Dr. Vidor
Career snapshot
Ranked #9268 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1993–2023
Career length
30 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
Most frequent director
Jonathan Demme
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jonathan Demme
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.7
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
1990s
7.2 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Philadelphia, Dave — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Philadelphia, Dave.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.71 film | 6.43 films | 6.81 film | 7.52 films |
| Action | — | 6.81 film | — | 6.91 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.81 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | 6.81 film | 6.83 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.22 films | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1993Philadelphia
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Anthea Burton.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
7.9 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
2023Ghosted
The current state of the argument, as Claudia Yates.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Nancy McNally
Directed by Thomas Schlamme
as Anthea Burton
Directed by Jonathan Demme
as Dr. Vidor
Directed by Billy Crystal
as Claudia Yates
Directed by Dexter Fletcher
as Elaine
Directed by Marielle Heller
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
Nancy McNally
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote (2020)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Nancy McNally gives Anna Deavere Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Anthea Burton
Philadelphia (1993)
Performance score7.5
Philadelphia asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anthea Burton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dr. Vidor
Here Today (2021)
Performance score6.9
Here Today asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Vidor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Claudia Yates
Ghosted (2023)
Performance score6.8
Ghosted asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Claudia Yates 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 Nancy McNally
Start here. A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote is the clearest statement of what Anna Deavere Smith does — accessible, 64 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Anna 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.
Philadelphia (1993)
Keeps the drama register of A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote but asks for a colder reading of it.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Philadelphia but asks for a colder reading of it.
Here Today (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Can You Ever Forgive Me? but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ghosted (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Here Today but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jonathan Demme
Director
2 films together
Notably Philadelphia
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Dave
Robert Benton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Human Stain
Peter Berg
Director
1 film together
Notably The Kingdom
Marielle Heller
Director
1 film together
Notably Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Thomas Schlamme
Director
1 film together
Notably A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
Billy Crystal
Director
1 film together
Notably Here Today
Lena Khan
Director
1 film together
Notably Flora & Ulysses
Dexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghosted
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jonathan Demme
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
PhiladelphiaThomas Schlamme
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All VoteBilly Crystal
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Here TodayDexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GhostedMarielle Heller
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Can You Ever Forgive Me?Peter Berg
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The KingdomIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DaveLena Khan
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Flora & UlyssesRobert Benton
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Human StainSix 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
Philadelphia
as Anthea Burton
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Rachel Getting Married
as Carol
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Philadelphia
as Anthea Burton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Philadelphia
as Anthea Burton
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
as Nancy McNally
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. Anna Deavere Smith 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
30 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in drama, 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
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
as Nancy McNally
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Kingdom
as Maricella Canavesio
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rachel Getting Married
as Carol
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Flora & Ulysses
as Dr. Meescham
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote
as Nancy McNally
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Kingdom
as Maricella Canavesio
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
as Elaine
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Here Today
as Dr. Vidor
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Elliot Page
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Have your say
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Reference
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