Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1252
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jill Wagner 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.
Jill Wagner appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jill. Mystery 101: Deadly History is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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, tv movie, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Lisa France, Bradley Walsh, Fred Gerber and others, Jill Wagner 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.
Mystery 101: Deadly History (2021) as Professor Amy Winslow · Mystery 101: Words Can Kill (2019) as Professor Amy Winslow · Mystery 101: Killer Timing (2021) as Professor Amy Winslow
Career snapshot
Ranked #1252 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2005–2025
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Mystery 101: Deadly History
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Mystery 101: Deadly History
Most frequent director
Lisa France
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Lisa France
Most common genre
TV Movie
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 27m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.6
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Mystery 101: Dead Talk, Mystery 101, Mystery 101: Playing Dead — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Junebug.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.21 film | 7.71 film |
| Action | — | 6.21 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | — | 6.02 films |
| Crime | — | 7.42 films | 7.82 films |
| Romance | — | 6.62 films | 6.34 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Junebug
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Millicent, friend at shower.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Mystery 101: Deadly History
8.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Beth.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Professor Amy Winslow
Directed by Stacey N. Harding
as Professor Amy Winslow
Directed by Andy Mikita
as Professor Amy Winslow
Directed by Fred Gerber
as Professor Amy Winslow
Directed by Winnifred Jong
as Professor Amy Winslow
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
Professor Amy Winslow
Mystery 101: Deadly History (2021)
Performance score8.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Professor Amy Winslow gives Jill Wagner a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Professor Amy Winslow
Mystery 101: Words Can Kill (2019)
Performance score8.4
Mystery 101: Words Can Kill asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Professor Amy Winslow is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Professor Amy Winslow
Mystery 101: Killer Timing (2021)
Performance score8.2
Mystery 101: Killer Timing asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Professor Amy Winslow is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Professor Amy Winslow
Mystery 101: Dead Talk (2019)
Performance score8.1
Mystery 101: Dead Talk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Professor Amy Winslow 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 Professor Amy Winslow
Start here. Mystery 101: Deadly History is the clearest statement of what Jill Wagner does — accessible, 84 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jill 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.
Mystery 101: Words Can Kill (2019)
Keeps the mystery register of Mystery 101: Deadly History but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mystery 101: Dead Talk (2019)
Keeps the mystery register of Mystery 101: Words Can Kill but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mystery 101: Playing Dead (2019)
Keeps the mystery register of Mystery 101: Dead Talk but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mystery 101: Killer Timing (2021)
Keeps the mystery register of Mystery 101: Playing Dead but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Lin Oeding
Director
1 film together
Notably Braven
Sean McNamara
Director
1 film together
Notably Christmas In Evergreen: Tidings of Joy
Andy Mikita
Director
1 film together
Notably Mystery 101: Words Can Kill
Winnifred Jong
Director
1 film together
Notably Mystery 101: Dead Talk
Jessica Harmon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Angel Tree
Michael Robison
Director
1 film together
Notably Mystery 101: An Education in Murder
Stacey N. Harding
Director
1 film together
Notably Mystery 101: Deadly History
Mike Rohl
Director
1 film together
Notably A Christmas Miracle for Daisy
Fred Gerber
Director
1 film together
Notably Mystery 101: Killer Timing
Bradley Walsh
Director
1 film together
Notably A Merry Christmas Wish
Lisa France
Director
1 film together
Notably Christmas at the Inn
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stacey N. Harding
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mystery 101: Deadly HistoryAndy Mikita
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mystery 101: Words Can KillFred Gerber
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mystery 101: Killer TimingWinnifred Jong
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mystery 101: Dead TalkMichael Robison
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mystery 101: An Education in MurderSean McNamara
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Christmas In Evergreen: Tidings of JoyLisa France
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Christmas at the InnJessica Harmon
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Angel TreeLin Oeding
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BravenBradley Walsh
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Merry Christmas WishMike Rohl
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Christmas Miracle for DaisySix 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
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Christmas Miracle for Daisy
as Whitney Alder
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Junebug
as Millicent, friend at shower
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
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. Jill Wagner 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
20 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.
TV Movie Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in tv movie, 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
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Christmas Miracle for Daisy
as Whitney Alder
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mystery 101: Killer Timing
as Professor Amy Winslow
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mystery 101: Deadly History
as Professor Amy Winslow
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Braven
as Stephanie
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Junebug
as Millicent, friend at shower
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Junebug
as Millicent, friend at shower
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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