Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#54876
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Maggie McCarthy works on quiet performance 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.
Maggie McCarthy appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Maggie. What Dreams May Come is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 mystery, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tom George, Lenny Abrahamson, Jeremy Dyson and others, Maggie McCarthy 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.
What Dreams May Come (1998) as Stacey Jacobs · Leap Year (2010) as Eileen · Calendar Girls (2003) as W.I. Administrator 1
Career snapshot
Ranked #54876 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1998–2022
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
What Dreams May Come
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
What Dreams May Come
Most frequent director
Tom George
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tom George
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.5
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
1990s
7.2 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. What Dreams May Come — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
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
1990s
7.2
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. What Dreams May Come.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | 6.42 films | 6.41 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.51 film | 6.91 film | 6.31 film |
| Crime | — | 6.31 film | — | 6.31 film |
| Romance | 7.21 film | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.12 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Stacey Jacobs. 7.2 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
2022See How They Run
The current state of the argument, as Mrs. Boyle.
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 Stacey Jacobs
Directed by Vincent Ward
as Eileen
Directed by Anand Tucker
as Mrs. Boyle
Directed by Tom George
as Mrs. Ravensdale
Directed by Lenny Abrahamson
as Jean Hooper
Directed by Jeremy Dyson
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
Stacey Jacobs
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Stacey Jacobs gives Maggie McCarthy a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Eileen
Leap Year (2010)
Performance score6.8
Leap Year asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eileen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mrs. Boyle
See How They Run (2022)
Performance score6.5
See How They Run asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Boyle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Ravensdale
The Little Stranger (2018)
Performance score6.5
The Little Stranger asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Ravensdale 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 Stacey Jacobs
Start here. What Dreams May Come is the clearest statement of what Maggie McCarthy does — accessible, 113 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Maggie 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.
Leap Year (2010)
Keeps the romance register of What Dreams May Come but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Little Stranger (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Leap Year — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ghost Stories (2018)
Keeps the horror register of The Little Stranger but asks for a colder reading of it.
See How They Run (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Ghost Stories — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Vincent Ward
Director
1 film together
Notably What Dreams May Come
Nigel Cole
Director
1 film together
Notably Calendar Girls
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Cassandra's Dream
Anand Tucker
Director
1 film together
Notably Leap Year
Jeremy Dyson
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghost Stories
Lenny Abrahamson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Little Stranger
Tom George
Director
1 film together
Notably See How They Run
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Vincent 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 ComeAnand Tucker
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Leap YearNigel Cole
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Calendar GirlsJeremy Dyson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghost StoriesTom George
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
See How They RunWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cassandra's DreamLenny Abrahamson
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Little StrangerSix 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
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Calendar Girls
as W.I. Administrator 1
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
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. Maggie McCarthy 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
24 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
4 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
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cassandra's Dream
as Servant
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
See How They Run
as Mrs. Boyle
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Leap Year
as Eileen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
What Dreams May Come
as Stacey Jacobs
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Little Stranger
as Mrs. Ravensdale
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
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Reference
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