Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2077
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Joanna Lumley represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 56 years in, and Joanna is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Joanna Lumley appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Joanna. The Wolf of Wall Street is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 thriller, comedy, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Beth McCarthy-Miller, Ben Lewin, Tim Hopewell and others, Joanna Lumley 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 Wolf of Wall Street (2013) as Aunt Emma · Me Before You (2016) as Mary Rawlinson · Corpse Bride (2005) as Maudeline Everglot (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2077 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1969–2025
Career length
56 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
The Wolf of Wall Street
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Wolf of Wall Street
Most frequent director
Beth McCarthy-Miller
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Beth McCarthy-Miller
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Corpse Bride, EuroTrip, Ella Enchanted — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
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
2000s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 | 1960s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | — | 8.22 films | — |
| Action | 6.61 film | — | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | — | — | — | 3.01 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.52 films | 6.44 films | 3.32 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 8.31 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 7.71 film | 7.02 films | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1969On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Where our catalogue meets this career, as The English Girl.
Highest rated performance
8.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
20197 Up & Me
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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 Narrator (voice)
Directed by Tim Hopewell
as Aunt Emma
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Mary Rawlinson
Directed by Thea Sharrock
as Maudeline Everglot (voice)
Directed by Tim Burton
as Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop
Directed by Ben Lewin
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
Narrator (voice)
7 Up & Me (2019)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Narrator (voice) gives Joanna Lumley a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Aunt Emma
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Performance score8.0
The Wolf of Wall Street asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aunt Emma is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mary Rawlinson
Me Before You (2016)
Performance score7.8
Me Before You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary Rawlinson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Maudeline Everglot (voice)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Performance score7.7
Corpse Bride asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maudeline Everglot (voice) 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 Narrator (voice)
Start here. 7 Up & Me is the clearest statement of what Joanna Lumley does — accessible, 47 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Joanna 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.
Corpse Bride (2005)
A deliberate change of key after 7 Up & Me — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Corpse Bride — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Me Before You (2016)
Keeps the drama register of The Wolf of Wall Street but asks for a colder reading of it.
Falling for Figaro (2021)
Keeps the romance register of Me Before You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Peter R. Hunt
Director
1 film together
Notably On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Henry Selick
Director
1 film together
Notably James and the Giant Peach
Nick Willing
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice in Wonderland
Tommy O'Haver
Director
1 film together
Notably Ella Enchanted
Alec Berg
Director
1 film together
Notably EuroTrip
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Corpse Bride
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wolf of Wall Street
Peter Bogdanovich
Director
1 film together
Notably She's Funny That Way
Terry Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Absolutely Anything
Mandie Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
Thea Sharrock
Director
1 film together
Notably Me Before You
Tim Hopewell
Director
1 film together
Notably 7 Up & Me
Ben Lewin
Director
1 film together
Notably Falling for Figaro
Beth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Netflix Tudum 2025
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wolf of Wall StreetThea Sharrock
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Me Before YouTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Corpse BrideTim Hopewell
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
7 Up & MeAlec Berg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EuroTripHenry Selick
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
James and the Giant PeachPeter R. Hunt
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
On Her Majesty's Secret ServiceBen Lewin
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Falling for FigaroTommy O'Haver
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ella EnchantedNick Willing
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice in WonderlandTerry Jones
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Absolutely AnythingPeter Bogdanovich
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She's Funny That WayBeth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Netflix Tudum 2025Mandie Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Absolutely Fabulous: The MovieSix 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
Me Before You
as Mary Rawlinson
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Me Before You
as Mary Rawlinson
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 Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
EuroTrip
as Hostel Clerk
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
7 Up & Me
as Narrator (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. Joanna Lumley 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
56 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
8 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
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Me Before You
as Mary Rawlinson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
James and the Giant Peach
as Aunt Spiker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
as The English Girl
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Aunt Emma
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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