Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#61974
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Susan McPhail works on versatility 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.
Susan McPhail appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Susan. Blue Bayou 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 versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, thriller, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Graham Phillips, Tate Taylor, Justin Chon and others, Susan McPhail 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.
Blue Bayou (2021) as Susanne · The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) as Diner Waitress · Renfield (2023) as Chaperone
Career snapshot
Ranked #61974 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2015–2023
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Blue Bayou
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Blue Bayou
Most frequent director
Graham Phillips
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Graham Phillips
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
6.1
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
2010s
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Peanut Butter Falcon, Mississippi Grind, A Walk in the Woods — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Peanut Butter Falcon, Mississippi Grind, A Walk in the Woods.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 4.43 films |
| Action | — | 6.31 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | 6.53 films | 6.22 films |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film |
| Horror | — | 5.82 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Donna.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2023Renfield
The current state of the argument, as Chaperone.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Diner Waitress
Directed by Unknown
as Motel Woman
Directed by Graham Phillips
as Kathy
Directed by Unknown
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
Susanne
Blue Bayou (2021)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Susanne gives Susan McPhail a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Diner Waitress
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Performance score7.2
The Peanut Butter Falcon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Diner Waitress is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Motel Woman
Rumble Through the Dark (2023)
Performance score6.5
Rumble Through the Dark asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Motel Woman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Chaperone
Renfield (2023)
Performance score6.5
Renfield asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chaperone 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 Susanne
Start here. Blue Bayou is the clearest statement of what Susan McPhail does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Susan 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.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Blue Bayou but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Visitor (2022)
Same director as The Peanut Butter Falcon, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Rumble Through the Dark (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The Visitor — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Renfield (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Rumble Through the Dark — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ken Kwapis
Director
1 film together
Notably A Walk in the Woods
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Mississippi Grind
Justin Chon
Director
1 film together
Notably Blue Bayou
Tate Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Breaking News in Yuba County
Graham Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably Rumble Through the Dark
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Justin Chon
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blue BayouGraham Phillips
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rumble Through the DarkKen Kwapis
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Walk in the WoodsRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mississippi GrindTate Taylor
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Breaking News in Yuba CountySix 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
Blue Bayou
as Susanne
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Blue Bayou
as Susanne
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 Peanut Butter Falcon
as Diner Waitress
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Renfield
as Chaperone
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blue Bayou
as Susanne
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. Susan McPhail 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
6 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 Peanut Butter Falcon
as Diner Waitress
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Rumble Through the Dark
as Motel Woman
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Blue Bayou
as Susanne
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Visitor
as Kathy
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Peanut Butter Falcon
as Diner Waitress
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rumble Through the Dark
as Motel Woman
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Peanut Butter Falcon
as Diner Waitress
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Visitor
as Kathy
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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