Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1448
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Lena Waithe 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.
Lena Waithe appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lena. The One and Only Dick Gregory is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 comedy, documentary, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Calmatic, James Adolphus, Linda Mendoza and others, Lena Waithe 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 One and Only Dick Gregory (2021) as Self · Onward (2020) as Officer Spector (voice) · Ready Player One (2018) as Aech / Helen
Career snapshot
Ranked #1448 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2018–2023
Career length
5 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
The One and Only Dick Gregory
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
The One and Only Dick Gregory
Most frequent director
Calmatic
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Calmatic
Most common genre
Comedy
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
2010s
7.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Ready Player One — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.6
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. Ready Player One.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Action | 7.61 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.84 films |
| Horror | — | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Ready Player One
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Aech / Helen.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021The One and Only Dick Gregory
7.9 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
The current state of the argument, as Self (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.
7 of 7 films
as Aech / Helen
Directed by Steven Spielberg
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
Self
The One and Only Dick Gregory (2021)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Lena Waithe a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Aech / Helen
Ready Player One (2018)
Performance score7.7
Ready Player One asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aech / Helen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Officer Spector (voice)
Onward (2020)
Performance score7.4
Onward asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Officer Spector (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self (voice)
Being Mary Tyler Moore (2023)
Performance score6.6
Being Mary Tyler Moore asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self (voice) 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 Self
Start here. The One and Only Dick Gregory is the clearest statement of what Lena Waithe does — accessible, 113 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lena 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.
Ready Player One (2018)
A deliberate change of key after The One and Only Dick Gregory — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Onward (2020)
Keeps the adventure register of Ready Player One but asks for a colder reading of it.
Being Mary Tyler Moore (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Onward — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
House Party (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Being Mary Tyler Moore — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Ready Player One
Justin Simien
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Hair
Linda Mendoza
Director
1 film together
Notably Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration
James Adolphus
Director
1 film together
Notably Being Mary Tyler Moore
Calmatic
Director
1 film together
Notably House Party
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ready Player OneJames Adolphus
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Being Mary Tyler MooreJustin Simien
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad HairCalmatic
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
House PartyLinda Mendoza
Director
1 film together · 4.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ CelebrationSix 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 One and Only Dick Gregory
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Onward
as Officer Spector (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
The One and Only Dick Gregory
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
House Party
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The One and Only Dick Gregory
as Self
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. Lena Waithe 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
4 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
Onward
as Officer Spector (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ready Player One
as Aech / Helen
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Onward
as Officer Spector (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Onward
as Officer Spector (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ready Player One
as Aech / Helen
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ready Player One
as Aech / Helen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Onward
as Officer Spector (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bad Hair
as Brook-Lynne
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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Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
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Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
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Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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