Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18581
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Rachael Stirling 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.
Rachael Stirling appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rachael. The Young Victoria 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, drama, emotional range. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, war, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Lone Scherfig, Lasse Hallström, Neil Marshall and others, Rachael Stirling 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 Young Victoria (2009) as Duchess of Sutherland · Their Finest (2017) as Phyl Moore · Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012) as Mary Jones
Career snapshot
Ranked #18581 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2009–2017
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Young Victoria
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Young Victoria
Most frequent director
Lone Scherfig
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Lone Scherfig
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.3
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
2000s
7.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Young Victoria — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
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
2000s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Young Victoria.
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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | 6.43 films |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.41 film |
| Romance | 7.21 film | 6.52 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 Duchess of Sutherland. 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
2017Their Finest
The current state of the argument, as Phyl Moore.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Duchess of Sutherland
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
as Phyl Moore
Directed by Lone Scherfig
as Mary Jones
Directed by Lasse Hallström
as Druzilla
Directed by Neil Marshall
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
Duchess of Sutherland
The Young Victoria (2009)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Duchess of Sutherland gives Rachael Stirling a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Phyl Moore
Their Finest (2017)
Performance score6.6
Their Finest asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Phyl Moore is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mary Jones
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)
Performance score6.6
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary Jones is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Druzilla
Centurion (2010)
Performance score6.5
Centurion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Druzilla 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 Duchess of Sutherland
Start here. The Young Victoria is the clearest statement of what Rachael Stirling does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Rachael 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.
Centurion (2010)
Keeps the drama register of The Young Victoria but asks for a colder reading of it.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Centurion but asks for a colder reading of it.
Their Finest (2017)
Keeps the romance register of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jean-Marc Vallée
Director
1 film together
Notably The Young Victoria
Neil Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Centurion
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together
Notably Their Finest
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jean-Marc Vallée
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 Young VictoriaLone Scherfig
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Their FinestLasse Hallström
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Salmon Fishing in the YemenNeil Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CenturionSix 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 Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
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 Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Centurion
as Druzilla
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
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. Rachael Stirling 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
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
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Centurion
as Druzilla
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Centurion
as Druzilla
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
as Mary Jones
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Young Victoria
as Duchess of Sutherland
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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