Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7315
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kathleen Wilhoite represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 35 years in, and Kathleen is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kathleen Wilhoite appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kathleen. In Search of Darkness: Part III is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 horror, documentary, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David A. Weiner, Justine Bateman, Roger Donaldson and others, Kathleen Wilhoite 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.
In Search of Darkness: Part III (2022) as Self · Angel Heart (1987) as Nurse · The Edge (1997) as Ginny
Career snapshot
Ranked #7315 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1987–2022
Career length
35 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
In Search of Darkness: Part III
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
In Search of Darkness: Part III
Most frequent director
David A. Weiner
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David A. Weiner
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 10m
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
6.7
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
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. In Search of Darkness: Part III, Violet — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.1
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. Road House, Angel Heart.
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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | 6.11 film | 5.91 film | 6.71 film |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.91 film | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 6.32 films | 6.11 film | 5.91 film | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.82 films | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.01 film | 5.82 films | — | — |
| Horror | 7.11 film | — | — | — | 7.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987Angel Heart
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Nurse.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2022In Search of Darkness: Part III
7.5 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. The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Ginny
Directed by Lee Tamahori
as Nurse
Directed by Alan Parker
as Carrie
Directed by Rowdy Herrington
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
Self
In Search of Darkness: Part III (2022)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Kathleen Wilhoite a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ginny
The Edge (1997)
Performance score7.1
The Edge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ginny is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nurse
Angel Heart (1987)
Performance score7.0
Angel Heart asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nurse is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Carrie
Road House (1989)
Performance score6.7
Road House asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carrie 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 Self
Start here. In Search of Darkness: Part III is the clearest statement of what Kathleen Wilhoite does — accessible, 342 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kathleen 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.
Angel Heart (1987)
Keeps the horror register of In Search of Darkness: Part III but asks for a colder reading of it.
Road House (1989)
A deliberate change of key after Angel Heart — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Edge (1997)
Keeps the action register of Road House but asks for a colder reading of it.
Violet (2021)
Keeps the drama register of The Edge but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alan Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably Angel Heart
Rowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together
Notably Road House
Curtis Hanson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Influence
Rob Lieberman
Director
1 film together
Notably Fire in the Sky
Lee Tamahori
Director
1 film together
Notably The Edge
Nick Gomez
Director
1 film together
Notably Drowning Mona
Neil LaBute
Director
1 film together
Notably Nurse Betty
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably Seeking Justice
Justine Bateman
Director
1 film together
Notably Violet
David A. Weiner
Director
1 film together
Notably In Search of Darkness: Part III
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David A. Weiner
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In Search of Darkness: Part IIIAlan Parker
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Angel HeartLee Tamahori
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 EdgeRowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Road HouseJustine Bateman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VioletRob Lieberman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fire in the SkyNeil LaBute
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nurse BettyCurtis Hanson
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad InfluenceRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Seeking JusticeNick Gomez
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Drowning MonaSix 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
Angel Heart
as Nurse
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Violet
as Waitress
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
In Search of Darkness: Part III
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
In Search of Darkness: Part III
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
In Search of Darkness: Part III
as Self
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. Kathleen Wilhoite 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
35 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
5 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
Angel Heart
as Nurse
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Angel Heart
as Nurse
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Violet
as Waitress
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fire in the Sky
as Katie Rogers
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Edge
as Ginny
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Edge
as Ginny
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Nurse Betty
as Sue Ann
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Drowning Mona
as Lucinda
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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