Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#19764
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jodi Long represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Jodi is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jodi Long appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jodi. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 mystery, horror, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Bryce McGuire, Destin Daniel Cretton, Tom Brady and others, Jodi Long 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.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) as Mrs. Chen · The Tale (2018) as Rebecca · Born on the Fourth of July (1989) as Reporter #1 - Democratic Conventon
Career snapshot
Ranked #19764 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1984–2024
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Most frequent director
Bryce McGuire
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Bryce McGuire
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
2010s
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Tale, Beginners — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Born on the Fourth of July, New York Stories, Splash.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.62 films | 6.01 film | — | 6.92 films | — |
| Action | — | 5.91 film | — | — | 7.51 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.32 films | 6.01 film | 6.41 film | 6.81 film | 6.51 film |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | 6.32 films | — | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984Splash
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Reporter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
7.5 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
2024Night Swim
The current state of the argument, as Lucy Summers.
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 Mrs. Chen
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Reporter #1 - Democratic Conventon
Directed by Oliver Stone
as Lucy Summers
Directed by Bryce McGuire
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. Chen
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mrs. Chen gives Jodi Long a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rebecca
The Tale (2018)
Performance score7.0
The Tale asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rebecca is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Reporter #1 - Democratic Conventon
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Performance score6.9
Born on the Fourth of July asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reporter #1 - Democratic Conventon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Long
Beginners (2011)
Performance score6.7
Beginners asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Long 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. Chen
Start here. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the clearest statement of what Jodi Long does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jodi 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.
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
A deliberate change of key after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Beginners (2011)
Keeps the drama register of Born on the Fourth of July but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Tale (2018)
Same director as Beginners, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Night Swim (2024)
Keeps the mystery register of The Tale but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Splash
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably New York Stories
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Born on the Fourth of July
Rowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together
Notably Striking Distance
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Celebrity
Tom Brady
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hot Chick
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Bryce McGuire
Director
1 film together
Notably Night Swim
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsOliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Born on the Fourth of JulyTom Brady
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hot ChickRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SplashFrancis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New York StoriesWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CelebrityRowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Striking DistanceBryce McGuire
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night SwimSix 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
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
New York Stories
as T.V. Interviewers
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Born on the Fourth of July
as Reporter #1 - Democratic Conventon
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
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. Jodi Long 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
40 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
6 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
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
New York Stories
as T.V. Interviewers
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Tale
as Rebecca
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
as Mrs. Chen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Monkey King
as Wangmu (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Splash
as Reporter
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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Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
Which Jodi Long performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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