Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3298
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Gemma Jones represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 54 years in, and Gemma is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Gemma Jones appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Gemma. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Morris, Thea Sharrock, Frances O'Connor and others, Gemma Jones 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.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) as Poppy Pomfrey · Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Poppy Pomfrey · Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) as Poppy Pomfrey
Career snapshot
Ranked #3298 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1971–2025
Career length
54 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Most frequent director
David Yates
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Yates
Most common genre
Drama
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.8
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
1970s
7.1 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. The Devils — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
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
1970s
7.4
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. The Devils.
Most productive era
2000s
8 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.11 film | 7.02 films | 6.24 films | 6.53 films | 5.66 films |
| Action | — | — | 5.51 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.33 films | 6.22 films | 6.72 films |
| Romance | — | 7.41 film | 6.52 films | 6.22 films | 6.73 films |
| Horror | 7.11 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1971The Devils
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Madeleine de Brou.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2011Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
8.3 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
2025Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
The current state of the argument, as Pamela Jones.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Poppy Pomfrey
Directed by David Yates
as Poppy Pomfrey
Directed by Chris Columbus
as Poppy Pomfrey
Directed by David Yates
as Ivy
Directed by Dexter Fletcher
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
Poppy Pomfrey
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Poppy Pomfrey gives Gemma Jones a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Poppy Pomfrey
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Performance score7.8
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Poppy Pomfrey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Poppy Pomfrey
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Performance score7.7
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Poppy Pomfrey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Dashwood
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Performance score7.5
Sense and Sensibility asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Dashwood 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 Poppy Pomfrey
Start here. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the clearest statement of what Gemma Jones does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Gemma 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.
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
A deliberate change of key after Sense and Sensibility — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Keeps the fantasy register of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rocketman (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Yates
Director
2 films together
Notably Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Ken Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devils
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Sense and Sensibility
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
David Dobkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Shanghai Knights
Josef Rusnak
Director
1 film together
Notably The Contractor
Vicente Amorim
Director
1 film together
Notably Good
Sandra Goldbacher
Director
1 film together
Notably Ballet Shoes
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Dexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Rocketman
Frances O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably Emily
Thea Sharrock
Director
1 film together
Notably Wicked Little Letters
Michael Morris
Director
1 film together
Notably Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Yates
Director
2 films together · 8.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsAng 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
Sense and SensibilityDexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RocketmanKen Russell
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DevilsThea Sharrock
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wicked Little LettersFrances O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EmilyMichael Morris
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bridget Jones: Mad About the BoySandra Goldbacher
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ballet ShoesVicente Amorim
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GoodDavid Dobkin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shanghai KnightsWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Will Meet a Tall Dark StrangerJosef Rusnak
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ContractorSix 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
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sense and Sensibility
as Mrs. Dashwood
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
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. Gemma Jones 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
54 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
16 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
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Devils
as Madeleine de Brou
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Emily
as Aunt Branwell
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Wicked Little Letters
as Victoria Swan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
as Poppy Pomfrey
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Contractor
as Mrs. Day
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
as Pamela Jones
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
as Poppy Pomfrey
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
Community
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Reference
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