Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5225
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Nina Wadia 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.
Nina Wadia appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nina. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, documentary, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Adrian Edmondson, Charles Martin Smith, Guy Ritchie and others, Nina Wadia 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.
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023) as Self - Contributor · A Street Cat Named Bob (2016) as Bus Conductress · Aladdin (2019) as Zulla
Career snapshot
Ranked #5225 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2002–2024
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
A Street Cat Named Bob
Most frequent director
Adrian Edmondson
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Adrian Edmondson
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 30m
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
2010s
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Queen's Corgi, Aladdin, A Street Cat Named Bob — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Code 46, Bend It Like Beckham.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 6.32 films | 7.61 film | 6.12 films |
| Thriller | 6.21 film | — | 5.62 films |
| Comedy | 6.31 film | 5.91 film | 5.51 film |
| Romance | 6.31 film | 7.11 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wedding Guest.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Blackadder: A Cunning Story
7.7 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
2024Bunnyhood
The current state of the argument, as Mum.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Bus Conductress
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
as Zulla
Directed by Guy Ritchie
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
Self - Contributor
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self - Contributor gives Nina Wadia a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bus Conductress
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
Performance score7.4
A Street Cat Named Bob asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bus Conductress is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mum
Bunnyhood (2024)
Performance score7.1
Bunnyhood asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mum is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Zulla
Aladdin (2019)
Performance score7.0
Aladdin asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zulla 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 - Contributor
Start here. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest statement of what Nina Wadia does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nina 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.
A Street Cat Named Bob (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Blackadder: A Cunning Story — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Aladdin (2019)
Keeps the family register of A Street Cat Named Bob but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Christmas Gift from Bob (2020)
Keeps the family register of Aladdin but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bunnyhood (2024)
A deliberate change of key after A Christmas Gift from Bob — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together
Notably A Street Cat Named Bob
Guy Ritchie
Director
1 film together
Notably Aladdin
Charles Martin Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably A Christmas Gift from Bob
Adrian Edmondson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bottom: Exposed
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Street Cat Named BobGuy Ritchie
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AladdinCharles Martin Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Christmas Gift from BobAdrian Edmondson
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bottom: ExposedSix 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
A Street Cat Named Bob
as Bus Conductress
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Aladdin
as Zulla
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Aladdin
as Zulla
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
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. Nina Wadia 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
22 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
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Aladdin
as Zulla
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Repeat
as Megan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Aladdin
as Zulla
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bend It Like Beckham
as Wedding Guest
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Repeat
as Megan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Nina Wadia performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
