Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#31647
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Rachel Hurd-Wood 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.
Rachel Hurd-Wood appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rachel. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer 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 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 horror, comedy, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Arkasha Stevenson, Oliver Parker, Tom Tykwer and others, Rachel Hurd-Wood 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.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) as Laura · Peter Pan (2003) as Wendy Darling · The First Omen (2024) as Katherine Thorn
Career snapshot
Ranked #31647 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2003–2024
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Most frequent director
Arkasha Stevenson
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Arkasha Stevenson
Most common genre
Fantasy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Dorian Gray, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Peter Pan — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.9
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. Dorian Gray, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Peter Pan.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.41 film | — |
| Crime | 7.41 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Peter Pan
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wendy Darling.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
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
2024The First Omen
The current state of the argument, as Katherine Thorn.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Wendy Darling
Directed by P.J. Hogan
as Katherine Thorn
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson
as Sibyl Vane
Directed by Oliver Parker
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
Laura
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Laura gives Rachel Hurd-Wood a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Wendy Darling
Peter Pan (2003)
Performance score7.5
Peter Pan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wendy Darling is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Katherine Thorn
The First Omen (2024)
Performance score6.7
The First Omen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Katherine Thorn is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kendra
For Love or Money (2019)
Performance score6.5
For Love or Money asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kendra 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 Laura
Start here. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is the clearest statement of what Rachel Hurd-Wood does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Rachel 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.
Peter Pan (2003)
Keeps the fantasy register of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dorian Gray (2009)
Keeps the fantasy register of Peter Pan but asks for a colder reading of it.
For Love or Money (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Dorian Gray — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The First Omen (2024)
A deliberate change of key after For Love or Money — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
P.J. Hogan
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter Pan
Tom Tykwer
Director
1 film together
Notably Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Oliver Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably Dorian Gray
Arkasha Stevenson
Director
1 film together
Notably The First Omen
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tom Tykwer
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Perfume: The Story of a MurdererP.J. Hogan
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter PanArkasha Stevenson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The First OmenOliver Parker
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dorian GraySix 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
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Peter Pan
as Wendy Darling
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The First Omen
as Katherine Thorn
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
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. Rachel Hurd-Wood 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
21 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.
Fantasy Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in fantasy, 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
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The First Omen
as Katherine Thorn
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Peter Pan
as Wendy Darling
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Peter Pan
as Wendy Darling
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Peter Pan
as Wendy Darling
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
as Laura
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Dorian Gray
as Sibyl Vane
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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