Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3121
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Bebe Neuwirth represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Bebe is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Bebe Neuwirth appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bebe. tick, tick... BOOM! 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, music, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jake Kasdan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Appel and others, Bebe Neuwirth 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.
tick, tick... BOOM! (2021) as "Sunday" Legend #9 · Jumanji (1995) as Nora · Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) as Nora
Career snapshot
Ranked #3121 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1989–2026
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
tick, tick... BOOM!
Average Nutevio score
5.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
tick, tick... BOOM!
Most frequent director
Jake Kasdan
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jake Kasdan
Most common genre
Comedy
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
6.4
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
6.9 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Say Anything... — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.0
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. Say Anything....
Most productive era
1990s
5 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.91 film | 6.33 films | 4.91 film | — | 4.23 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.51 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.91 film | 6.01 film | 5.63 films | 6.91 film | 1.73 films |
| Crime | — | 6.42 films | 5.01 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.91 film | — | 5.92 films | — | 5.11 film |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1989Say Anything...
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mrs. Evans.
Career peak
1995Jumanji
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Nora.
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 "Sunday" Legend #9
Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda
as Nora
Directed by Joe Johnston
as Nora
Directed by Jake Kasdan
as Mrs. Evans
Directed by Cameron Crowe
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
"Sunday" Legend #9
tick, tick... BOOM! (2021)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. "Sunday" Legend #9 gives Bebe Neuwirth a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nora
Jumanji (1995)
Performance score7.4
Jumanji asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nora is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nora
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Performance score6.8
Jumanji: The Next Level asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nora is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lana Jong
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Performance score6.8
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lana Jong 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 "Sunday" Legend #9
Start here. tick, tick... BOOM! is the clearest statement of what Bebe Neuwirth does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bebe 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.
Say Anything... (1989)
Keeps the drama register of tick, tick... BOOM! but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jumanji (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Say Anything... — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Jumanji — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jake Kasdan
Director
2 films together
Notably Jumanji: The Next Level
Cameron Crowe
Director
1 film together
Notably Say Anything...
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bugsy
Joe Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably Jumanji
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Celebrity
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably The Faculty
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Summer of Sam
James Ivory
Director
1 film together
Notably Le Divorce
Donald Petrie
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Alex Appel
Director
1 film together
Notably Modern Persuasion
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director
1 film together
Notably tick, tick... BOOM!
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jake Kasdan
Director
2 films together · 3.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jumanji: The Next LevelLin-Manuel Miranda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
tick, tick... BOOM!Joe Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
JumanjiDonald Petrie
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Lose a Guy in 10 DaysCameron Crowe
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Say Anything...Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FacultySpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Summer of SamBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BugsyWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CelebrityAlex Appel
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Modern PersuasionJames Ivory
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Le DivorceSix 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
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
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. Bebe Neuwirth 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
37 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
9 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
Jumanji
as Nora
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Summer of Sam
as Gloria
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
tick, tick... BOOM!
as "Sunday" Legend #9
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Bugsy
as Countess di Frasso
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Jumanji
as Nora
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Jumanji
as Nora
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Say Anything...
as Mrs. Evans
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Faculty
as Principal Valerie Drake
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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