Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10366
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Denise Gough 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.
Denise Gough appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Denise. H Is for Hawk is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 fantasy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Greta Gerwig, Philippa Lowthorpe, Joe Cornish and others, Denise Gough 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.
H Is for Hawk (2025) as Christina · Colette (2018) as Missy · Monday (2021) as Chloe
Career snapshot
Ranked #10366 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2010–2027
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
H Is for Hawk
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
H Is for Hawk
Most frequent director
Greta Gerwig
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Greta Gerwig
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
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
6.2
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
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Kid Who Would Be King, Juliet, Naked, Colette — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Kid Who Would Be King, Juliet, Naked, Colette.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.24 films |
| Action | 6.32 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.71 film |
| Comedy | 6.31 film | — |
| Romance | 6.31 film | 6.51 film |
| Horror | — | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010Robin Hood
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Village Mother.
Career peak
2018Colette
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2025H Is for Hawk
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2027Narnia: The Magician's Nephew
The current state of the argument.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Christina
Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe
as Missy
Directed by Wash Westmoreland
Directed by Greta Gerwig
as Sarah
Directed by Unknown
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
Christina
H Is for Hawk (2025)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Christina gives Denise Gough a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Missy
Colette (2018)
Performance score7.3
Colette asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Missy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Chloe
Monday (2021)
Performance score7.0
Monday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chloe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Narnia: The Magician's Nephew
Narnia: The Magician's Nephew (2027)
Performance score6.5
Narnia: The Magician's Nephew asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role 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 Christina
Start here. H Is for Hawk is the clearest statement of what Denise Gough does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Denise 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.
Colette (2018)
Keeps the drama register of H Is for Hawk but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Other Lamb (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Colette but asks for a colder reading of it.
Monday (2021)
Same director as The Other Lamb, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Narnia: The Magician's Nephew (2027)
A deliberate change of key after Monday — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Robin Hood
Wash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together
Notably Colette
Jesse Peretz
Director
1 film together
Notably Juliet, Naked
Joe Cornish
Director
1 film together
Notably The Kid Who Would Be King
Philippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably H Is for Hawk
Greta Gerwig
Director
1 film together
Notably Narnia: The Magician's Nephew
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Philippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
H Is for HawkWash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ColetteRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Robin HoodJesse Peretz
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Juliet, NakedJoe Cornish
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Kid Who Would Be KingGreta Gerwig
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Narnia: The Magician's NephewSix 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
H Is for Hawk
as Christina
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Monday
as Chloe
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
H Is for Hawk
as Christina
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Robin Hood
as Village Mother
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
H Is for Hawk
as Christina
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. Denise Gough 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.
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
H Is for Hawk
as Christina
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Other Lamb
as Sarah
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Monday
as Chloe
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Kid Who Would Be King
as Mrs. Elliot
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Robin Hood
as Village Mother
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Robin Hood
as Village Mother
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Juliet, Naked
as Gina
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
H Is for Hawk
as Christina
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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