Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3168
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kerry Cahill 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.
Kerry Cahill appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kerry. Mudbound 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 mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ryan Zaragoza, Nzingha Stewart, Dee Rees and others, Kerry Cahill 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.
Mudbound (2017) as Rose Tricklebank · Now You See Me (2013) as Elkhorn Agent · Free State of Jones (2016) as Mary
Career snapshot
Ranked #3168 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2009–2021
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Mudbound
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Mudbound
Most frequent director
Ryan Zaragoza
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ryan Zaragoza
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.2
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. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
Most productive era
2010s
17 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 | 6.21 film | 6.312 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.42 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.36 films | 5.11 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.34 films | — |
| Crime | 6.21 film | 6.43 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.52 films | — |
| Horror | — | 4.01 film | 5.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Second Narcotics Detective.
Career peak
2013Now You See Me
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2017Mudbound
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2021Madres
The current state of the argument, as Nurse Carol.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Elkhorn Agent
Directed by Louis Leterrier
as Nurse Shelly
Directed by Eric Heisserer
as Mary
Directed by Gary Ross
as Cashier
Directed by Andrew Fleming
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
Rose Tricklebank
Mudbound (2017)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Rose Tricklebank gives Kerry Cahill a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Elkhorn Agent
Now You See Me (2013)
Performance score7.2
Now You See Me asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elkhorn Agent is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nurse Shelly
Hours (2013)
Performance score6.8
Hours asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nurse Shelly is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mary
Free State of Jones (2016)
Performance score6.7
Free State of Jones asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary 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 Rose Tricklebank
Start here. Mudbound is the clearest statement of what Kerry Cahill does — accessible, 135 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kerry 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.
Now You See Me (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Mudbound — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Hours (2013)
Keeps the thriller register of Now You See Me but asks for a colder reading of it.
Barefoot (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Hours but asks for a colder reading of it.
Free State of Jones (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Barefoot but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Werner Herzog
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Ami Canaan Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Texas Killing Fields
Eric Heisserer
Director
1 film together
Notably Hours
Atom Egoyan
Director
1 film together
Notably Devil's Knot
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Oldboy
Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together
Notably Now You See Me
Andrew Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Barefoot
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Mississippi Grind
Alan Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator Genisys
Kieran Darcy-Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably The Duel
Gary Ross
Director
1 film together
Notably Free State of Jones
Dee Rees
Director
1 film together
Notably Mudbound
Nzingha Stewart
Director
1 film together
Notably Tall Girl
Ryan Zaragoza
Director
1 film together
Notably Madres
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Dee Rees
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MudboundLouis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Now You See MeGary Ross
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Free State of JonesAndrew Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BarefootEric Heisserer
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HoursNzingha Stewart
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tall GirlAtom Egoyan
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Devil's KnotWerner Herzog
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New OrleansAlan Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator GenisysRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mississippi GrindSpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OldboyAmi Canaan Mann
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Texas Killing FieldsRyan Zaragoza
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MadresKieran Darcy-Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DuelSix 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
Mudbound
as Rose Tricklebank
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tall Girl
as Gina
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mudbound
as Rose Tricklebank
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Now You See Me
as Elkhorn Agent
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mudbound
as Rose Tricklebank
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. Kerry Cahill 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
13 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
Mudbound
as Rose Tricklebank
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Now You See Me
as Elkhorn Agent
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tall Girl
as Gina
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Through the Glass Darkly
as Cricket
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Free State of Jones
as Mary
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Terminator Genisys
as Lt. Whitley
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Barefoot
as Cashier
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Duel
as Philomena
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Kerry Cahill performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
