Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#47870
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Cherami Leigh works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cherami Leigh appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cherami. Predator: Killer of Killers 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 action, science fiction, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dan Trachtenberg, Conrad Vernon, Mick Jackson and others, Cherami Leigh 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.
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) as Young Ursa (voice) · Temple Grandin (2010) as Marcia · The Addams Family 2 (2021) as Ophelia (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #47870 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Predator: Killer of Killers
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Temple Grandin
Most frequent director
Dan Trachtenberg
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Dan Trachtenberg
Most common genre
Animation
2 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
6.6
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
2010s
7.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Temple Grandin — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Fast Food Nation.
Most productive era
2020s
2 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.11 film | 7.41 film | — |
| Action | — | — | 7.81 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2006Fast Food Nation
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kim.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2025Predator: Killer of Killers
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. The current state of the argument, as Young Ursa (voice).
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.
4 of 4 films
as Young Ursa (voice)
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg
as Marcia
Directed by Mick Jackson
as Ophelia (voice)
Directed by Conrad Vernon
as Kim
Directed by Richard Linklater
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Young Ursa (voice)
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Young Ursa (voice) gives Cherami Leigh a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Marcia
Temple Grandin (2010)
Performance score7.2
Temple Grandin asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marcia is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ophelia (voice)
The Addams Family 2 (2021)
Performance score6.8
The Addams Family 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ophelia (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kim
Fast Food Nation (2006)
Performance score6.5
Fast Food Nation asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kim 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 Young Ursa (voice)
Start here. Predator: Killer of Killers is the clearest statement of what Cherami Leigh does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cherami 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.
Fast Food Nation (2006)
A deliberate change of key after Predator: Killer of Killers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Temple Grandin (2010)
Keeps the drama register of Fast Food Nation but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Addams Family 2 (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Temple Grandin — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Fast Food Nation
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably Temple Grandin
Conrad Vernon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Addams Family 2
Dan Trachtenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Predator: Killer of Killers
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Dan Trachtenberg
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Predator: Killer of KillersMick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Temple GrandinConrad Vernon
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Addams Family 2Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fast Food NationSix 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
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Temple Grandin
as Marcia
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Fast Food Nation
as Kim
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
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. Cherami Leigh 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Animation Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in animation, 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
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Temple Grandin
as Marcia
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Addams Family 2
as Ophelia (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Predator: Killer of Killers
as Young Ursa (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Addams Family 2
as Ophelia (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Fast Food Nation
as Kim
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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