Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13605
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Patsy Ferran 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.
Patsy Ferran appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Patsy. Darkest Hour 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 science fiction, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Bong Joon Ho, Noah Baumbach, Marc Forster and others, Patsy Ferran 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.
Darkest Hour (2017) as Maid · White Bird (2023) as Mille. Petitjean · Mickey 17 (2025) as Dorothy
Career snapshot
Ranked #13605 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2017–2025
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Darkest Hour
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
White Bird
Most frequent director
Bong Joon Ho
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Bong Joon Ho
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.1
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Tulip Fever, Darkest Hour — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. Tulip Fever, Darkest Hour.
Most productive era
2020s
11 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 | 7.02 films | 5.57 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.64 films |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Tulip Fever
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tart.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2017Darkest Hour
7.4 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
2025Hot Milk
The current state of the argument, as Nurse Julieta.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Maid
Directed by Joe Wright
as Mille. Petitjean
Directed by Marc Forster
as Dorothy
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
as Pearl (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Joy the Bell Girl
Directed by Tim Story
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
Maid
Darkest Hour (2017)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maid gives Patsy Ferran a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mille. Petitjean
White Bird (2023)
Performance score7.1
White Bird asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mille. Petitjean is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dorothy
Mickey 17 (2025)
Performance score6.9
Mickey 17 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dorothy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pearl (voice)
Zog and the Flying Doctors (2021)
Performance score6.9
Zog and the Flying Doctors asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pearl (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 Maid
Start here. Darkest Hour is the clearest statement of what Patsy Ferran does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Patsy 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.
Zog and the Flying Doctors (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Darkest Hour — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tom & Jerry (2021)
Keeps the family register of Zog and the Flying Doctors but asks for a colder reading of it.
White Bird (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Tom & Jerry — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mickey 17 (2025)
A deliberate change of key after White Bird — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joe Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Darkest Hour
Justin Chadwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Tulip Fever
Coky Giedroyc
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Build a Girl
Eva Husson
Director
1 film together
Notably Mothering Sunday
Tim Story
Director
1 film together
Notably Tom & Jerry
Oliver Hermanus
Director
1 film together
Notably Living
Marc Forster
Director
1 film together
Notably White Bird
Noah Baumbach
Director
1 film together
Notably Jay Kelly
Bong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Mickey 17
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joe Wright
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Darkest HourMarc Forster
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
White BirdBong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mickey 17Tim Story
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tom & JerryOliver Hermanus
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LivingJustin Chadwick
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tulip FeverNoah Baumbach
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jay KellyCoky Giedroyc
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Build a GirlEva Husson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mothering SundaySix 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
Darkest Hour
as Maid
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Darkest Hour
as Maid
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Darkest Hour
as Maid
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Jay Kelly
as Brenda
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Darkest Hour
as Maid
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. Patsy Ferran 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
9 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
Darkest Hour
as Maid
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Darkest Hour
as Maid
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mothering Sunday
as Milly
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Zog and the Flying Doctors
as Pearl (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Darkest Hour
as Maid
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mickey 17
as Dorothy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
White Bird
as Mille. Petitjean
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mothering Sunday
as Milly
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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Song Kang-ho
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
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Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Cho Yeo-jeong
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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