Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10071
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Sharon Washington represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Sharon is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sharon Washington appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sharon. Joker is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Todd Phillips, Samantha Soule, Tony Gilroy and others, Sharon Washington 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.
Joker (2019) as Social Worker · Sing Sing (2024) as Social Worker · Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) as Officer Jane
Career snapshot
Ranked #10071 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1992–2024
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Joker
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Joker
Most frequent director
Todd Phillips
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Todd Phillips
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
1990s
7.4 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Malcolm X — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.4
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.4
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. Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Malcolm X.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 7.41 film | 6.53 films | 7.32 films | 6.24 films |
| Action | 7.41 film | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Thriller | 7.41 film | 6.42 films | 7.32 films | 5.41 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.81 film | 7.32 films | 5.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Malcolm X
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Augusta.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Joker
8.4 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
2024Sing Sing
The current state of the argument, as Social Worker.
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 Social Worker
Directed by Todd Phillips
as Officer Jane
Directed by John McTiernan
as Alicia's Mother
Directed by Richard Linklater
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
Social Worker
Joker (2019)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Social Worker gives Sharon Washington a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Social Worker
Sing Sing (2024)
Performance score7.2
Sing Sing asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Social Worker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Officer Jane
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
Performance score7.2
Die Hard: With a Vengeance asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Officer Jane is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Augusta
Malcolm X (1992)
Performance score7.2
Malcolm X asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Augusta 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 Social Worker
Start here. Joker is the clearest statement of what Sharon Washington does — accessible, 122 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sharon 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.
Malcolm X (1992)
Keeps the drama register of Joker but asks for a colder reading of it.
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Malcolm X — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The School of Rock (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Die Hard: With a Vengeance — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Sing Sing (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The School of Rock — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tony Gilroy
Director
2 films together
Notably Michael Clayton
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together
Notably Joker
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Malcolm X
John McTiernan
Director
1 film together
Notably Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably The School of Rock
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Half Nelson
Samantha Soule
Director
1 film together
Notably Birdwatching
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
JokerTony Gilroy
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Michael ClaytonJohn McTiernan
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Die Hard: With a VengeanceSpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Malcolm XRichard Linklater
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 School of RockRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Half NelsonSamantha Soule
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BirdwatchingSix 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
Joker
as Social Worker
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Malcolm X
as Augusta
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Joker
as Social Worker
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Bourne Legacy
as C-Team
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Joker
as Social Worker
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. Sharon Washington 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
32 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
10 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
Joker
as Social Worker
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Joker
as Social Worker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Down with the King
as Darlene
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Life Before Her Eyes
as Nurse
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Joker
as Social Worker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
as Officer Jane
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Joker
as Social Worker
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Joker
as Social Worker
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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