Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18997
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Lilly Aspell 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.
Lilly Aspell appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lilly. Young Woman and the Sea 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 drama, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Joachim Rønning, Robert Zemeckis, Nimród Antal and others, Lilly Aspell 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.
Young Woman and the Sea (2024) as Young Meg Ederle · Wonder Woman (2017) as Diana (Age 8) · Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After (2021) as Gretel
Career snapshot
Ranked #18997 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2017–2024
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Young Woman and the Sea
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Young Woman and the Sea
Most frequent director
Patty Jenkins
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Patty Jenkins
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Young Woman and the Sea, Here, Retribution — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
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. Holmes & Watson, Extinction, Wonder Woman.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 6.11 film | 7.02 films |
| Action | 6.72 films | 6.52 films |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | 4.31 film | 7.11 film |
| Crime | 4.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Wonder Woman
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Diana (Age 8).
Career peak
2021Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024Here
The current state of the argument, as Bethany.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Young Meg Ederle
Directed by Joachim Rønning
as Diana (Age 8)
Directed by Patty Jenkins
as Emily Turner
Directed by Nimród Antal
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
Gretel
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After (2021)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gretel gives Lilly Aspell a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Young Meg Ederle
Young Woman and the Sea (2024)
Performance score7.2
Young Woman and the Sea asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Meg Ederle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Diana (Age 8)
Wonder Woman (2017)
Performance score7.1
Wonder Woman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Diana (Age 8) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Emily Turner
Retribution (2023)
Performance score7.0
Retribution asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Emily Turner 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 Gretel
Start here. Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After is the clearest statement of what Lilly Aspell does — accessible, 45 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lilly 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.
Wonder Woman (2017)
Keeps the fantasy register of Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After but asks for a colder reading of it.
Retribution (2023)
Keeps the action register of Wonder Woman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Young Woman and the Sea (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Retribution — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Here (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Young Woman and the Sea but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Patty Jenkins
Director
2 films together
Notably Wonder Woman
Ben Young
Director
1 film together
Notably Extinction
Etan Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Holmes & Watson
Dan Zeff
Director
1 film together
Notably Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
Nimród Antal
Director
1 film together
Notably Retribution
Robert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together
Notably Here
Joachim Rønning
Director
1 film together
Notably Young Woman and the Sea
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Patty Jenkins
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Wonder WomanJoachim Rønning
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Young Woman and the SeaDan Zeff
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever AfterRobert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HereNimród Antal
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RetributionBen Young
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ExtinctionEtan Cohen
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holmes & WatsonSix 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
Young Woman and the Sea
as Young Meg Ederle
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Young Woman and the Sea
as Young Meg Ederle
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Young Woman and the Sea
as Young Meg Ederle
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Here
as Bethany
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
as Gretel
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. Lilly Aspell 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in action, 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
Wonder Woman
as Diana (Age 8)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Wonder Woman
as Diana (Age 8)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Young Woman and the Sea
as Young Meg Ederle
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Holmes & Watson
as Newschild
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Wonder Woman
as Diana (Age 8)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Retribution
as Emily Turner
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Young Woman and the Sea
as Young Meg Ederle
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Extinction
as Megan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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