Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#32279
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Kyra Harper represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Kyra is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kyra Harper appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kyra. The Glass Castle is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, tv movie, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Allegra Fulton, Bill Corcoran, Destin Daniel Cretton and others, Kyra Harper 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 Glass Castle (2017) as Miss Bivens · To Die For (1995) as Mary Emmett · Danger Next Door (2021) as Sharon
Career snapshot
Ranked #32279 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1995–2026
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Glass Castle
Average Nutevio score
4.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
The Glass Castle
Most frequent director
Allegra Fulton
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Allegra Fulton
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 23m
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
6.3
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
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Glass Castle — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. To Die For.
Most productive era
2020s
2 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 | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 7.11 film | 0.01 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 4.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1995To Die For
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mary Emmett.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2017The Glass Castle
7.1 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
2026A Small Service
The current state of the argument, as Koko.
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 Miss Bivens
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Mary Emmett
Directed by Gus Van Sant
as Koko
Directed by Allegra Fulton
as Sharon
Directed by Bill Corcoran
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
Miss Bivens
The Glass Castle (2017)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Miss Bivens gives Kyra Harper a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mary Emmett
To Die For (1995)
Performance score6.6
To Die For asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary Emmett is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Koko
A Small Service (2026)
Performance score6.5
A Small Service asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Koko is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sharon
Danger Next Door (2021)
Performance score6.5
Danger Next Door asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sharon 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 Miss Bivens
Start here. The Glass Castle is the clearest statement of what Kyra Harper does — accessible, 127 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kyra 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.
To Die For (1995)
Keeps the drama register of The Glass Castle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Danger Next Door (2021)
A deliberate change of key after To Die For — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Small Service (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Danger Next Door — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Gus Van Sant
Director
1 film together
Notably To Die For
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Glass Castle
Bill Corcoran
Director
1 film together
Notably Danger Next Door
Allegra Fulton
Director
1 film together
Notably A Small Service
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Glass CastleGus Van Sant
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
To Die ForBill Corcoran
Director
1 film together · 4.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Danger Next DoorAllegra Fulton
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Small ServiceSix 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 Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
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 Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
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 Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
To Die For
as Mary Emmett
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
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. Kyra Harper 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
31 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 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
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
To Die For
as Mary Emmett
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Glass Castle
as Miss Bivens
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
To Die For
as Mary Emmett
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
To Die For
as Mary Emmett
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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Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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