Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#80404
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Jo Yang 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.
Jo Yang appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jo. The Squid and the Whale is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, drama, emotional range. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mayim Bialik, Noah Baumbach, Charles Shyer, Jo Yang 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.
The Squid and the Whale (2005) as Nurse · Alfie (2004) as Mrs. Wing · Daddy (2019) as Woman in Elevator
Career snapshot
Ranked #80404 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2004–2022
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
The Squid and the Whale
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
The Squid and the Whale
Most frequent director
Mayim Bialik
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Mayim Bialik
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 15m
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
2000s
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Squid and the Whale, Alfie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.4
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. The Squid and the Whale, Alfie.
Most productive era
2000s
2 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 | 6.52 films | 5.81 film | 5.31 film |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | — | 5.31 film |
| Romance | 5.91 film | — | 5.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Alfie
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mrs. Wing.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.0 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
2022As They Made Us
The current state of the argument, as Marge.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Marge
Directed by Mayim Bialik
as Mrs. Wing
Directed by Charles Shyer
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
Nurse
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Nurse gives Jo Yang a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Marge
As They Made Us (2022)
Performance score6.5
As They Made Us asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marge is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Woman in Elevator
Daddy (2019)
Performance score6.5
Daddy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Woman in Elevator is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Wing
Alfie (2004)
Performance score6.5
Alfie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Wing 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 Nurse
Start here. The Squid and the Whale is the clearest statement of what Jo Yang does — accessible, 81 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jo 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.
Alfie (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of The Squid and the Whale but asks for a colder reading of it.
Daddy (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Alfie but asks for a colder reading of it.
As They Made Us (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Daddy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Noah Baumbach
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 Squid and the WhaleCharles Shyer
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AlfieMayim Bialik
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
As They Made UsSix 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 Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Alfie
as Mrs. Wing
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
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. Jo Yang 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
4 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
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Alfie
as Mrs. Wing
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Squid and the Whale
as Nurse
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Alfie
as Mrs. Wing
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Alfie
as Mrs. Wing
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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