Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#35444
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Herta Ware 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.
Herta Ware appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Herta. Cruel Intentions is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Roger Kumble, Griffin Dunne, Roger Donaldson and others, Herta Ware 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.
Cruel Intentions (1999) as Mrs. Sugarman · Practical Magic (1998) as Old Lady Wilkes · 2010 (1984) as Jessie Bowman
Career snapshot
Ranked #35444 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1984–1999
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Cruel Intentions
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
Cruel Intentions
Most frequent director
Roger Kumble
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Roger Kumble
Most common genre
Science Fiction
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.4
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
6.6 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Cruel Intentions, Practical Magic, Species — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.6
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. Cocoon: The Return, Cocoon, 2010.
Most productive era
1980s
3 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.91 film |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.81 film |
| Romance | — | 6.82 films |
| Horror | — | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
19842010
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jessie Bowman.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
1999Cruel Intentions
6.9 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. The current state of the argument, as Mrs. Sugarman.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Mrs. Sugarman
Directed by Roger Kumble
as Old Lady Wilkes
Directed by Griffin Dunne
as Rosie Lefkowitz
Directed by Ron Howard
as Jessie Bowman
Directed by Peter Hyams
as Mrs. Morris
Directed by Roger Donaldson
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
Mrs. Sugarman
Cruel Intentions (1999)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mrs. Sugarman gives Herta Ware a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Old Lady Wilkes
Practical Magic (1998)
Performance score6.7
Practical Magic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Old Lady Wilkes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Rosie Lefkowitz
Cocoon (1985)
Performance score6.6
Cocoon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rosie Lefkowitz is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jessie Bowman
2010 (1984)
Performance score6.6
2010 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jessie Bowman 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 Mrs. Sugarman
Start here. Cruel Intentions is the clearest statement of what Herta Ware does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Herta 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.
2010 (1984)
A deliberate change of key after Cruel Intentions — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cocoon (1985)
Keeps the science fiction register of 2010 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Species (1995)
Keeps the science fiction register of Cocoon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Practical Magic (1998)
A deliberate change of key after Species — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Peter Hyams
Director
1 film together
Notably 2010
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Cocoon
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably Species
Griffin Dunne
Director
1 film together
Notably Practical Magic
Roger Kumble
Director
1 film together
Notably Cruel Intentions
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Roger Kumble
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cruel IntentionsGriffin Dunne
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Practical MagicPeter Hyams
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2010Ron Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CocoonRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpeciesSix 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
2010
as Jessie Bowman
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Cruel Intentions
as Mrs. Sugarman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Cruel Intentions
as Mrs. Sugarman
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Practical Magic
as Old Lady Wilkes
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Cruel Intentions
as Mrs. Sugarman
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. Herta Ware 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.
Science Fiction Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in science fiction, 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
Cocoon
as Rosie Lefkowitz
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cocoon
as Rosie Lefkowitz
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Cruel Intentions
as Mrs. Sugarman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Cocoon
as Rosie Lefkowitz
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Species
as Mrs. Morris
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Species
as Mrs. Morris
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Cruel Intentions
as Mrs. Sugarman
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Species
as Mrs. Morris
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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