Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1628
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jean Smart 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.
Jean Smart appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jean. Wildflower is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 comedy, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Damien Chazelle, Ben Falcone, Paul Feig and others, Jean Smart 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.
Wildflower (2023) as Peg · Babylon (2022) as Elinor St. John · Life Itself (2018) as Linda Dempsey
Career snapshot
Ranked #1628 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2000–2023
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Wildflower
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Wildflower
Most frequent director
Damien Chazelle
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Damien Chazelle
Most common genre
Comedy
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 49m
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
6.5
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
2020s
6.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Wildflower, Babylon, Superintelligence — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
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. Youth in Revolt, Lucky You, I ♥ Huckabees.
Most productive era
2000s
8 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 | 6.33 films | 6.64 films | 7.32 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.47 films | 6.42 films | 6.93 films |
| Crime | — | 7.11 film | — |
| Romance | 6.35 films | 6.82 films | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2000The Kid
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Deirdre Lefever.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2023Wildflower
7.4 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 Peg.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Elinor St. John
Directed by Damien Chazelle
as Carol
Directed by Zach Braff
as Linda Dempsey
Directed by Dan Fogelman
as Rita Blackburn
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
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
Peg
Wildflower (2023)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Peg gives Jean Smart a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Elinor St. John
Babylon (2022)
Performance score7.4
Babylon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elinor St. John is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Carol
Garden State (2004)
Performance score7.2
Garden State asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carol is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Linda Dempsey
Life Itself (2018)
Performance score7.1
Life Itself asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Linda Dempsey 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 Peg
Start here. Wildflower is the clearest statement of what Jean Smart does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jean 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.
Garden State (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of Wildflower but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Accountant (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Garden State but asks for a colder reading of it.
Life Itself (2018)
Keeps the drama register of The Accountant but asks for a colder reading of it.
Babylon (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Life Itself but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Chris Koch
Director
1 film together
Notably Snow Day
Jon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together
Notably The Kid
Andy Tennant
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweet Home Alabama
Steve Loter
Director
1 film together
Notably Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time
Zach Braff
Director
1 film together
Notably Garden State
David O. Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably I ♥ Huckabees
Curtis Hanson
Director
1 film together
Notably Lucky You
Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together
Notably Youth in Revolt
David Frankel
Director
1 film together
Notably Hope Springs
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Accountant
Dan Fogelman
Director
1 film together
Notably Life Itself
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably A Simple Favor
Ben Falcone
Director
1 film together
Notably Superintelligence
Damien Chazelle
Director
1 film together
Notably Babylon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Damien Chazelle
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BabylonDan Fogelman
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Life ItselfGavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AccountantZach Braff
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Garden StateJon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The KidSteve Loter
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kim Possible: A Sitch in TimePaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Simple FavorAndy Tennant
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sweet Home AlabamaDavid Frankel
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hope SpringsDavid O. Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I ♥ HuckabeesMiguel Arteta
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Youth in RevoltBen Falcone
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperintelligenceCurtis Hanson
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lucky YouChris Koch
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Snow DaySix 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
The Accountant
as Rita Blackburn
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Life Itself
as Linda Dempsey
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Wildflower
as Peg
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I ♥ Huckabees
as Mrs. Hooten
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Wildflower
as Peg
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. Jean Smart 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
23 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
12 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
A Simple Favor
as Margaret McLanden
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Accountant
as Rita Blackburn
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Life Itself
as Linda Dempsey
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Simple Favor
as Margaret McLanden
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time
as Dr. Ann Possible (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time
as Dr. Ann Possible (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Youth in Revolt
as Estelle Twisp
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hope Springs
as Eileen, Kay's Friend
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
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Jamie Harris
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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