Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4864
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Swoosie Kurtz represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 30 years in, and Swoosie is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Swoosie Kurtz appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Swoosie. Dangerous Liaisons 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 quiet performance, emotional range, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rob Greenberg, Danny DeVito, Tommy O'Haver and others, Swoosie Kurtz 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.
Dangerous Liaisons (1988) as Madame de Volanges · Cruel Intentions (1999) as Dr. Greenbaum · Liar Liar (1997) as Dana Appleton
Career snapshot
Ranked #4864 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1988–2018
Career length
30 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Dangerous Liaisons
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Dangerous Liaisons
Most frequent director
Rob Greenberg
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Rob Greenberg
Most common genre
Romance
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
1980s
7.1 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Dangerous Liaisons — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
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
1980s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Dangerous Liaisons.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.11 film | 6.72 films | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.72 films | 5.83 films | 6.71 film |
| Romance | 7.11 film | 6.72 films | 5.72 films | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Madame de Volanges. 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
2018Overboard
The current state of the argument, as Grace.
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 Madame de Volanges
Directed by Stephen Frears
as Grace
Directed by Rob Greenberg
as Dr. Greenbaum
Directed by Roger Kumble
as Dana Appleton
Directed by Tom Shadyac
as Charlane McGregor
Directed by Ben Stiller
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Madame de Volanges
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Madame de Volanges gives Swoosie Kurtz a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Grace
Overboard (2018)
Performance score6.9
Overboard asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grace is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dr. Greenbaum
Cruel Intentions (1999)
Performance score6.8
Cruel Intentions asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Greenbaum is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dana Appleton
Liar Liar (1997)
Performance score6.7
Liar Liar asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dana Appleton 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 Madame de Volanges
Start here. Dangerous Liaisons is the clearest statement of what Swoosie Kurtz does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Swoosie 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.
Reality Bites (1994)
Keeps the romance register of Dangerous Liaisons but asks for a colder reading of it.
Liar Liar (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of Reality Bites but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cruel Intentions (1999)
A deliberate change of key after Liar Liar — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Overboard (2018)
Keeps the romance register of Cruel Intentions but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together
Notably Dangerous Liaisons
Ben Stiller
Director
1 film together
Notably Reality Bites
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Liar Liar
Roger Kumble
Director
1 film together
Notably Cruel Intentions
Tommy O'Haver
Director
1 film together
Notably Get Over It
Danny DeVito
Director
1 film together
Notably Duplex
Rob Greenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Overboard
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dangerous LiaisonsRoger Kumble
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cruel IntentionsTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Liar LiarRob Greenberg
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OverboardBen Stiller
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Reality BitesDanny DeVito
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DuplexTommy O'Haver
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Get Over ItSix 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
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Cruel Intentions
as Dr. Greenbaum
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
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. Swoosie Kurtz 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
30 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.
Romance Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in romance, 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
Liar Liar
as Dana Appleton
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Cruel Intentions
as Dr. Greenbaum
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Liar Liar
as Dana Appleton
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dangerous Liaisons
as Madame de Volanges
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bubble Boy
as Mrs. Livingston
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Reality Bites
as Charlane McGregor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Cruel Intentions
as Dr. Greenbaum
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
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Reference
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