Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6453
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jamey Sheridan works on quiet performance 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.
Jamey Sheridan appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jamey. Spotlight 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 quiet performance, drama, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, history, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nick Hamm, Craig William Macneill, Jonathan Dayton and others, Jamey Sheridan 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.
Spotlight (2015) as Jim Sullivan · Sully (2016) as Ben Edwards · Life as a House (2001) as Peter Kimball
Career snapshot
Ranked #6453 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1997–2019
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Spotlight
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Spotlight
Most frequent director
Nick Hamm
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Nick Hamm
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
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
6.6
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
1990s
6.9 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Ice Storm — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.9
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. The Ice Storm.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.91 film | 6.83 films | 6.96 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.72 films | 6.33 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.82 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.22 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997The Ice Storm
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jim Carver.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Spotlight
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
2019Driven
The current state of the argument, as Bill.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Jim Sullivan
Directed by Tom McCarthy
as Ben Edwards
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Mark Salter
Directed by Jay Roach
as Peter Kimball
Directed by Irwin Winkler
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
Jim Sullivan
Spotlight (2015)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jim Sullivan gives Jamey Sheridan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ben Edwards
Sully (2016)
Performance score7.3
Sully asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben Edwards is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mark Salter
Game Change (2012)
Performance score7.1
Game Change asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mark Salter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jim Carver
The Ice Storm (1997)
Performance score7.1
The Ice Storm asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jim Carver 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 Jim Sullivan
Start here. Spotlight is the clearest statement of what Jamey Sheridan does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jamey 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.
The Ice Storm (1997)
Keeps the drama register of Spotlight but asks for a colder reading of it.
Life as a House (2001)
Keeps the drama register of The Ice Storm but asks for a colder reading of it.
Game Change (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Life as a House but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sully (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Game Change but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ice Storm
Irwin Winkler
Director
1 film together
Notably Life as a House
Stephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together
Notably Syriana
Rod Lurie
Director
1 film together
Notably Nothing but the Truth
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Game Change
Zal Batmanglij
Director
1 film together
Notably The East
Tom McCarthy
Director
1 film together
Notably Spotlight
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Sully
Jonathan Dayton
Director
1 film together
Notably Battle of the Sexes
Craig William Macneill
Director
1 film together
Notably Lizzie
Nick Hamm
Director
1 film together
Notably Driven
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tom McCarthy
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpotlightClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SullyIrwin Winkler
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Life as a HouseJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Game ChangeRod Lurie
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nothing but the TruthAng Lee
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 Ice StormJonathan Dayton
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Battle of the SexesZal Batmanglij
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The EastStephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SyrianaNick Hamm
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DrivenCraig William Macneill
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LizzieSix 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
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Battle of the Sexes
as Ken Rosewall
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
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. Jamey Sheridan 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
22 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
10 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
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Lizzie
as Andrew Borden
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spotlight
as Jim Sullivan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Battle of the Sexes
as Ken Rosewall
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Battle of the Sexes
as Ken Rosewall
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Battle of the Sexes
as Ken Rosewall
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
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Reference
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