Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2947
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Rosalind Chao represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Rosalind is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Rosalind Chao appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rosalind. I Am Sam is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, fantasy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nisha Ganatra, Michael Angarano, Theodore Melfi and others, Rosalind Chao 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.
I Am Sam (2001) as Lily · What Dreams May Come (1998) as Leona · Just Like Heaven (2005) as Fran
Career snapshot
Ranked #2947 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1992–2025
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
I Am Sam
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
I Am Sam
Most frequent director
Mark Waters
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Mark Waters
Most common genre
Comedy
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Just Like Heaven, Freaky Friday, Impostor — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
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, Memoirs of an Invisible Man.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 7.61 film | 6.01 film | 6.53 films |
| Action | — | 6.11 film | — | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | 5.91 film | 6.11 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 5.91 film | 6.82 films | 6.33 films | 6.64 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.01 film | — |
| Romance | 6.62 films | 7.01 film | 6.81 film | 6.41 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cathy DiTolla.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001I Am Sam
7.6 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
2025Sacramento
The current state of the argument, as Dr. Murray.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Leona
Directed by Vincent Ward
as Fran
Directed by Mark Waters
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
Lily
I Am Sam (2001)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lily gives Rosalind Chao a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leona
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Performance score7.1
What Dreams May Come asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leona is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Angela Mori
Plus One (2019)
Performance score7.0
Plus One asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Angela Mori is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Fran
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Performance score6.9
Just Like Heaven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fran 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 Lily
Start here. I Am Sam is the clearest statement of what Rosalind Chao does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Rosalind 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.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Keeps the drama register of I Am Sam but asks for a colder reading of it.
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Keeps the romance register of What Dreams May Come but asks for a colder reading of it.
Plus One (2019)
Keeps the romance register of Just Like Heaven but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Starling (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Plus One — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mark Waters
Director
3 films together
Notably Just Like Heaven
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together
Notably Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Vincent Ward
Director
1 film together
Notably What Dreams May Come
Jessie Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably I Am Sam
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Impostor
Jeff Chan
Director
1 film together
Notably Plus One
Niki Caro
Director
1 film together
Notably Mulan
Theodore Melfi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Starling
Michael Angarano
Director
1 film together
Notably Sacramento
Nisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together
Notably Freakier Friday
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mark Waters
Director
3 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Just Like HeavenJessie Nelson
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Am SamVincent 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 ComeTheodore Melfi
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The StarlingNisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freakier FridayNiki Caro
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MulanJeff Chan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Plus OneMichael Angarano
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SacramentoGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ImpostorJohn Carpenter
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Memoirs of an Invisible ManSix 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
I Am Sam
as Lily
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 Leona
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
I Am Sam
as Lily
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Impostor
as Newscaster (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
I Am Sam
as Lily
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. Rosalind Chao 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
33 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
10 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
I Am Sam
as Lily
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
I Am Sam
as Lily
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
What Dreams May Come
as Leona
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Freaky Friday
as Pei-Pei
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mulan
as Hua Li
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mulan
as Hua Li
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Laundromat
as Gu Kailai
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Together Together
as Dr. Andrews
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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Bonnie Hunt
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Elliot Page
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David Krumholtz
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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