Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kaliswa Brewster appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kaliswa. Dumb Money is the clearest case: a film rated 6.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, screen presence, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jillian Bell, Craig Gillespie, Barry Levinson, Kaliswa Brewster 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.
Dumb Money (2023) as Additional Voices (voice) · Merv (2023) as Waitress · Summer of 69 (2025) as Additional Voice (voice)
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Kaliswa Brewster.
Films in Nutevio
4
2018–2025
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.7
Dumb Money
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Merv
Most frequent director
Jillian Bell
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jillian Bell
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 24m
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
2020s
6.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Summer of 69, Dumb Money, Merv — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Paterno.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.53 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Paterno
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mara Lewis.
Highest rated performance
2023Dumb Money
6.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2023Merv
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Summer of 69
The current state of the argument, as Additional Voice (voice).
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 Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Craig Gillespie
as Additional Voice (voice)
Directed by Jillian Bell
as Mara Lewis
Directed by Barry Levinson
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
Waitress
Merv (2023)
Performance score6.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Waitress gives Kaliswa Brewster a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Additional Voices (voice)
Dumb Money (2023)
Performance score6.6
Dumb Money asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Additional Voice (voice)
Summer of 69 (2025)
Performance score6.5
Summer of 69 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voice (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mara Lewis
Paterno (2018)
Performance score6.5
Paterno asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mara Lewis 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 Waitress
Start here. Merv is the clearest statement of what Kaliswa Brewster does — accessible, 22 minutes, and rated 6.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kaliswa 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.
Paterno (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Merv — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dumb Money (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Paterno but asks for a colder reading of it.
Summer of 69 (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of Dumb Money 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.
Craig Gillespie
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dumb MoneyJillian Bell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Summer of 69Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PaternoSix 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
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Merv
as Waitress
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. Kaliswa Brewster 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 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
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Merv
as Waitress
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dumb Money
as Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Paterno
as Mara Lewis
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
David Krumholtz
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Milly Alcock
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Eve Ridley
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Kaliswa Brewster 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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