Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11338
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Lucinda Jenney represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Lucinda is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lucinda Jenney appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lucinda. Rain Man is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, thriller, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nnamdi Asomugha, Rob Zombie, Clark Johnson and others, Lucinda Jenney 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.
Rain Man (1988) as Iris · Thelma & Louise (1991) as Lena, the Waitress · Leaving Las Vegas (1995) as Weird Woman
Career snapshot
Ranked #11338 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1986–2025
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Rain Man
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Rain Man
Most frequent director
Ridley Scott
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Ridley Scott
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.8
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
7.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Knife — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Rain Man, Peggy Sue Got Married.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.92 films | 7.06 films | 6.61 film | — | 7.21 film |
| Action | — | 6.61 film | 6.21 film | 5.81 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.31 film | 6.62 films | 5.81 film | 7.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | 6.82 films | — | — | — |
| Crime | — | 7.61 film | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 7.13 films | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Rosalie Testa.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1988Rain Man
7.8 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
2025The Knife
The current state of the argument, as Mary.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Lena, the Waitress
Directed by Ridley Scott
as Mary
Directed by Nnamdi Asomugha
as Mrs. Jacobs
Directed by Vincent Ward
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Iris
Rain Man (1988)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Iris gives Lucinda Jenney a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lena, the Waitress
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Performance score7.4
Thelma & Louise asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lena, the Waitress is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Weird Woman
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Performance score7.2
Leaving Las Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Weird Woman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mary
The Knife (2025)
Performance score7.1
The Knife 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 Iris
Start here. Rain Man is the clearest statement of what Lucinda Jenney does — accessible, 134 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lucinda 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.
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Keeps the drama register of Rain Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Keeps the drama register of Thelma & Louise but asks for a colder reading of it.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Keeps the romance register of Leaving Las Vegas but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Knife (2025)
Keeps the drama register of What Dreams May Come but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ridley Scott
Director
2 films together
Notably Thelma & Louise
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably Peggy Sue Got Married
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Rain Man
Joe Dante
Director
1 film together
Notably Matinee
Mike Figgis
Director
1 film together
Notably Leaving Las Vegas
Costa-Gavras
Director
1 film together
Notably Mad City
Griffin Dunne
Director
1 film together
Notably Practical Magic
Vincent Ward
Director
1 film together
Notably What Dreams May Come
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably Thirteen Days
John Stockwell
Director
1 film together
Notably Crazy/Beautiful
Clark Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably S.W.A.T.
Rob Zombie
Director
1 film together
Notably 3 from Hell
Nnamdi Asomugha
Director
1 film together
Notably The Knife
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ridley Scott
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Thelma & LouiseBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rain ManMike Figgis
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Leaving Las VegasNnamdi Asomugha
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The KnifeVincent Ward
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Dreams May ComeRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thirteen DaysGriffin Dunne
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Practical MagicJoe Dante
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MatineeJohn Stockwell
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crazy/BeautifulCosta-Gavras
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mad CityClark Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
S.W.A.T.Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peggy Sue Got MarriedRob Zombie
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
3 from HellSix 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
Rain Man
as Iris
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Leaving Las Vegas
as Weird Woman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Rain Man
as Iris
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
S.W.A.T.
as Kathy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Rain Man
as Iris
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. Lucinda Jenney 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
39 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
10 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
Rain Man
as Iris
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Thelma & Louise
as Lena, the Waitress
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Crazy/Beautiful
as Courtney Oakley
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
S.W.A.T.
as Kathy
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Thelma & Louise
as Lena, the Waitress
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
3 from Hell
as Nebraska
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Crazy/Beautiful
as Courtney Oakley
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
G.I. Jane
as Blondell
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
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Michael Caine
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
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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