Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#50007
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Kristen DeVore Rakes 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.
Kristen DeVore Rakes appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kristen. The Space Between Us 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 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 Stephen Gaghan, Andrew Niccol, Wally Pfister and others, Kristen DeVore Rakes 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 Space Between Us (2017) as Maid · Gold (2016) as Carissa · Frontera (2014) as ICE Guard
Career snapshot
Ranked #50007 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2013–2019
Career length
6 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
The Space Between Us
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
The Space Between Us
Most frequent director
Stephen Gaghan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Stephen Gaghan
Most common genre
Thriller
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.1
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
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Velvet Buzzsaw, The Space Between Us, Gold — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.2
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. Velvet Buzzsaw, The Space Between Us, Gold.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 |
|---|---|
| Drama | 6.45 films |
| Action | 6.11 film |
| Thriller | 6.05 films |
| Crime | 6.11 film |
| Romance | 7.01 film |
| Horror | 5.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2013The Last Stand
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Agent Devers.
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
2019Velvet Buzzsaw
The current state of the argument, as German Woman.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Maid
Directed by Unknown
as ICE Guard
Directed by Michael Berry
as Carissa
Directed by Stephen Gaghan
as German Woman
Directed by Unknown
as Iris
Directed by Andrew Niccol
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
Maid
The Space Between Us (2017)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maid gives Kristen DeVore Rakes a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
ICE Guard
Frontera (2014)
Performance score6.7
Frontera asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. ICE Guard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Carissa
Gold (2016)
Performance score6.6
Gold asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carissa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
German Woman
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Performance score6.5
Velvet Buzzsaw asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. German Woman 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 Maid
Start here. The Space Between Us is the clearest statement of what Kristen DeVore Rakes does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kristen 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.
Frontera (2014)
Keeps the drama register of The Space Between Us but asks for a colder reading of it.
Good Kill (2015)
Keeps the drama register of Frontera but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gold (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Good Kill but asks for a colder reading of it.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Keeps the thriller register of Gold but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kim Jee-woon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Stand
Michael Berry
Director
1 film together
Notably Frontera
Wally Pfister
Director
1 film together
Notably Transcendence
Andrew Niccol
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Kill
Stephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together
Notably Gold
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GoldMichael Berry
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FronteraWally Pfister
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TranscendenceKim Jee-woon
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last StandAndrew Niccol
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good KillSix 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 Space Between Us
as Maid
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Space Between Us
as Maid
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 Space Between Us
as Maid
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transcendence
as MIT Programmer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Space Between Us
as Maid
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. Kristen DeVore Rakes 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in thriller, 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 Space Between Us
as Maid
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Last Stand
as Agent Devers
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Space Between Us
as Maid
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Transcendence
as MIT Programmer
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gold
as Carissa
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Last Stand
as Agent Devers
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Good Kill
as Iris
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Good Kill
as Iris
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
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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