Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15621
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Hayley Squires 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.
Hayley Squires appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hayley. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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 war, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Steve McQueen, Ari Aster, Harry Wootliff and others, Hayley Squires 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.
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) as Marie Wain · Beau Is Afraid (2023) as Penelope · Blitz (2024) as Tilda
Career snapshot
Ranked #15621 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2021–2024
Career length
3 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Most frequent director
Steve McQueen
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Steve McQueen
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 4m
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
2020s
6.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Blitz, Beau Is Afraid, True Things — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.1
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2020s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Blitz, Beau Is Afraid, True Things.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2020s |
|---|---|
| Drama | 6.13 films |
| Thriller | 5.61 film |
| Comedy | 6.82 films |
| Horror | 5.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Marie Wain. 6.9 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
2024Blitz
The current state of the argument, as Tilda.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Marie Wain
Directed by Will Sharpe
as Penelope
Directed by Ari Aster
as Tilda
Directed by Steve McQueen
as Dr. Olivia Wendle
Directed by Ben Wheatley
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
Marie Wain
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Marie Wain gives Hayley Squires a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Penelope
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Performance score6.6
Beau Is Afraid asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Penelope is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tilda
Blitz (2024)
Performance score6.5
Blitz asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tilda is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Alison
True Things (2022)
Performance score6.5
True Things asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alison 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 Marie Wain
Start here. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is the clearest statement of what Hayley Squires does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hayley 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.
In the Earth (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Electrical Life of Louis Wain — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
True Things (2022)
A deliberate change of key after In the Earth — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
A deliberate change of key after True Things — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Blitz (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Beau Is Afraid — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ben Wheatley
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Earth
Will Sharpe
Director
1 film together
Notably The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Harry Wootliff
Director
1 film together
Notably True Things
Ari Aster
Director
1 film together
Notably Beau Is Afraid
Steve McQueen
Director
1 film together
Notably Blitz
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Will Sharpe
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Electrical Life of Louis WainAri Aster
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beau Is AfraidSteve McQueen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BlitzBen Wheatley
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the EarthHarry Wootliff
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
True ThingsSix 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
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
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 Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Beau Is Afraid
as Penelope
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
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. Hayley Squires 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
3 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
Beau Is Afraid
as Penelope
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
In the Earth
as Dr. Olivia Wendle
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Blitz
as Tilda
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Beau Is Afraid
as Penelope
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Beau Is Afraid
as Penelope
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
as Marie Wain
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
True Things
as Alison
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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