Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9055
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Stephanie Faracy represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Stephanie is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Stephanie Faracy appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Stephanie. Hocus Pocus is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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, romance, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jake Szymanski, Nicholas Stoller, Jake Kasdan and others, Stephanie Faracy 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.
Hocus Pocus (1993) as Jenny Dennison · Heaven Can Wait (1978) as Corinne · Flightplan (2005) as Anna
Career snapshot
Ranked #9055 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1978–2016
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Hocus Pocus
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Hocus Pocus
Most frequent director
Nicholas Stoller
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Nicholas Stoller
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
6.6
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
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Hocus Pocus — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Heaven Can Wait.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | — | 6.41 film | 5.91 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 7.11 film | 5.71 film | 5.94 films |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — | 5.71 film | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1978Heaven Can Wait
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Corinne.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1993Hocus Pocus
7.1 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
2016Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
The current state of the argument, as Rosie.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Jenny Dennison
Directed by Kenny Ortega
as Florist
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
as Mrs. Pubich
Directed by Jake Kasdan
as Wendy
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
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
Jenny Dennison
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jenny Dennison gives Stephanie Faracy a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rosie
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)
Performance score6.5
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rosie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Florist
The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
Performance score6.5
The Five-Year Engagement asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Florist is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Pubich
Bad Teacher (2011)
Performance score6.5
Bad Teacher asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Pubich 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 Jenny Dennison
Start here. Hocus Pocus is the clearest statement of what Stephanie Faracy does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Stephanie 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.
Get Him to the Greek (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Hocus Pocus but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bad Teacher (2011)
Keeps the comedy register of Get Him to the Greek but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
Keeps the comedy register of Bad Teacher but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of The Five-Year Engagement but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nicholas Stoller
Director
2 films together
Notably Get Him to the Greek
Warren Beatty
Director
1 film together
Notably Heaven Can Wait
Kenny Ortega
Director
1 film together
Notably Hocus Pocus
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Surviving Christmas
Robert Schwentke
Director
1 film together
Notably Flightplan
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Teacher
Jake Szymanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nicholas Stoller
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Get Him to the GreekKenny Ortega
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hocus PocusWarren Beatty
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heaven Can WaitRobert Schwentke
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FlightplanJake Szymanski
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mike and Dave Need Wedding DatesMike Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Surviving ChristmasJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad TeacherSix 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
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Heaven Can Wait
as Corinne
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Get Him to the Greek
as Wendy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
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. Stephanie Faracy 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
38 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
7 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
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Flightplan
as Anna
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Heaven Can Wait
as Corinne
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Flightplan
as Anna
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Get Him to the Greek
as Wendy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Heaven Can Wait
as Corinne
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hocus Pocus
as Jenny Dennison
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Stephanie Faracy performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
