Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3573
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Margaret Cho represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Margaret is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Margaret Cho appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Margaret. The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU is the clearest case: a film rated 9.7 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, drama, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gregg Araki, Anya Adams, Linda Mendoza and others, Margaret Cho 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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU (2020) as Self · Prom Pact (2023) as Ms. Chen · Over the Moon (2020) as Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3573 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1997–2026
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.7
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.7
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Most frequent director
Gregg Araki
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gregg Araki
Most common genre
Comedy
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
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
6.4
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. Face/Off — 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
7.1
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. Face/Off.
Most productive era
2020s
16 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 | — | — | — | 1.02 films |
| Action | 7.21 film | — | 5.52 films | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.21 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.31 film | 5.02 films | 4.913 films |
| Crime | 7.21 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | — | 6.64 films |
| Horror | — | — | 4.71 film | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997Face/Off
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wanda.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.7 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
2026I Want Your Sex
The current state of the argument, as Detective Zola.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Erin
Directed by Andrew Ahn
as Ms. Chen
Directed by Anya Adams
as Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
Directed by Unknown
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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU (2020)
Performance score9.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Margaret Cho a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Erin
Fire Island (2022)
Performance score7.3
Fire Island asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Erin is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ms. Chen
Prom Pact (2023)
Performance score7.1
Prom Pact asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ms. Chen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
Over the Moon (2020)
Performance score7.1
Over the Moon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Auntie Ling / Gretch (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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU is the clearest statement of what Margaret Cho does — accessible, 42 minutes, and rated 9.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Margaret 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.
Face/Off (1997)
A deliberate change of key after The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Over the Moon (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Face/Off — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Fire Island (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Over the Moon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Prom Pact (2023)
Keeps the romance register of Fire Island but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Woo
Director
1 film together
Notably Face/Off
Burr Steers
Director
1 film together
Notably 17 Again
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Bright
Brad Lachman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Jay Karas
Director
1 film together
Notably Feeding America Comedy Festival
Nicol Paone
Director
1 film together
Notably Friendsgiving
Kimmy Gatewood
Director
1 film together
Notably Good on Paper
Andrew Ahn
Director
1 film together
Notably Fire Island
Linda Mendoza
Director
1 film together
Notably Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration
Anya Adams
Director
1 film together
Notably Prom Pact
Gregg Araki
Director
1 film together
Notably I Want Your Sex
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brad Lachman
Director
1 film together · 9.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVUAnya Adams
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Prom PactJohn Woo
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Face/OffAndrew Ahn
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fire IslandBurr Steers
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
17 AgainDavid Ayer
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BrightGregg Araki
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Want Your SexJay Karas
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Feeding America Comedy FestivalKimmy Gatewood
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good on PaperNicol Paone
Director
1 film together · 4.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FriendsgivingLinda 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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
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
Over the Moon
as Auntie Ling / Gretch (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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
as Simone
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
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. Margaret Cho 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
29 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
16 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
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as Self
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Over the Moon
as Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Over the Moon
as Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bright
as Sergeant Ching
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Over the Moon
as Auntie Ling / Gretch (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Face/Off
as Wanda
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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