Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3861
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Gemma Chan 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.
Gemma Chan appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Gemma. Raya and the Last Dragon 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Duke Johnson, Gareth Edwards, Olivia Wilde and others, Gemma Chan 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.
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) as Namaari (voice) · Submarine (2011) as Kim-Lin · Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) as Madame Ya Zou
Career snapshot
Ranked #3861 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2010–2026
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Most frequent director
Richard Ayoade
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Richard Ayoade
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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. Captain Marvel, Mary Queen of Scots, Crazy Rich Asians — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 11 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. Captain Marvel, Mary Queen of Scots, Crazy Rich Asians.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 6.55 films | 3.93 films |
| Action | 6.04 films | 7.23 films |
| Thriller | 5.85 films | 4.33 films |
| Comedy | 7.32 films | 5.61 film |
| Crime | 5.11 film | 0.01 film |
| Romance | 7.32 films | — |
| Horror | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010Shanghai
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shin Shin.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2026Josephine
The current state of the argument, as Claire.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Namaari (voice)
Directed by Don Hall
as Maya
Directed by Gareth Edwards
as Sersi
Directed by Chloé Zhao
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
Namaari (voice)
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Namaari (voice) gives Gemma Chan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self - Sersi
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Eternals (2022)
Performance score7.7
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Eternals asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Sersi is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Maya
The Creator (2023)
Performance score7.4
The Creator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maya is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sersi
Eternals (2021)
Performance score7.4
Eternals asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sersi 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 Namaari (voice)
Start here. Raya and the Last Dragon is the clearest statement of what Gemma Chan does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Gemma 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.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Raya and the Last Dragon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Eternals (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Crazy Rich Asians — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Eternals (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Eternals — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Creator (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Eternals — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Richard Ayoade
Director
2 films together
Notably Submarine
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably Shanghai
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
David Yates
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers: The Last Knight
Simon West
Director
1 film together
Notably Stratton
Jon M. Chu
Director
1 film together
Notably Crazy Rich Asians
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Captain Marvel
Don Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Raya and the Last Dragon
Chloé Zhao
Director
1 film together
Notably Eternals
Olivia Wilde
Director
1 film together
Notably Don't Worry Darling
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably The Creator
Duke Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Actor
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Richard Ayoade
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
SubmarineDon Hall
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Raya and the Last DragonDavid Yates
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find ThemJon M. Chu
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crazy Rich AsiansGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CreatorOlivia Wilde
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Don't Worry DarlingChloé Zhao
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EternalsRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captain MarvelDuke Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ActorMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Transformers: The Last KnightKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jack Ryan: Shadow RecruitMikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShanghaiSimon West
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StrattonSix 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (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
Submarine
as Kim-Lin
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Double
as 'The Replicator' - Glamourous Judge
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (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. Gemma Chan 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
8 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mary Queen of Scots
as Bess of Hardwick
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Shanghai
as Shin Shin
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Raya and the Last Dragon
as Namaari (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Creator
as Maya
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Submarine
as Kim-Lin
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mary Queen of Scots
as Bess of Hardwick
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Bonnie Hunt
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David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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