Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10604
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Roma Maffia represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Roma is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Roma Maffia appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Roma. Holes 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, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, mystery, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Stephanie Laing, Andrew Davis, Bruce Beresford and others, Roma Maffia 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.
Holes (2003) as Carla Morengo · Tow (2026) as Judge Smith · Double Jeopardy (1999) as Margaret Skolowski
Career snapshot
Ranked #10604 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1994–2026
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Holes
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
Holes
Most frequent director
Stephanie Laing
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Stephanie Laing
Most common genre
Thriller
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.5
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Holes — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Double Jeopardy, Kiss the Girls, Eraser.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.91 film | 5.72 films |
| Action | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.45 films | — | 5.22 films |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 6.91 film | — |
| Crime | 6.44 films | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994The Paper
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Carmen.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2003Holes
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
2026Tow
The current state of the argument, as Judge Smith.
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 Carla Morengo
Directed by Andrew Davis
as Margaret Skolowski
Directed by Bruce Beresford
as Dr. Ruocco
Directed by Gary Fleder
as Carmen
Directed by Ron Howard
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
Carla Morengo
Holes (2003)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Carla Morengo gives Roma Maffia a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Judge Smith
Tow (2026)
Performance score6.6
Tow asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judge Smith is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Margaret Skolowski
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Performance score6.6
Double Jeopardy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Margaret Skolowski is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Ruocco
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Performance score6.6
Kiss the Girls asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Ruocco 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 Carla Morengo
Start here. Holes is the clearest statement of what Roma Maffia does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Roma 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.
The Paper (1994)
Keeps the comedy register of Holes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Keeps the drama register of The Paper but asks for a colder reading of it.
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Keeps the mystery register of Kiss the Girls but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tow (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Double Jeopardy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Disclosure
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paper
John Badham
Director
1 film together
Notably Nick of Time
Chuck Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably Eraser
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss the Girls
Bruce Beresford
Director
1 film together
Notably Double Jeopardy
Andrew Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Holes
Stephanie Laing
Director
1 film together
Notably Tow
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Andrew Davis
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HolesStephanie Laing
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TowBruce Beresford
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Double JeopardyGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss the GirlsRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PaperChuck Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EraserBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DisclosureJohn Badham
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nick of TimeSix 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
Holes
as Carla Morengo
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Holes
as Carla Morengo
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Holes
as Carla Morengo
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Holes
as Carla Morengo
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Holes
as Carla Morengo
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. Roma Maffia 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
32 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Double Jeopardy
as Margaret Skolowski
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Double Jeopardy
as Margaret Skolowski
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Holes
as Carla Morengo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Curse of the Necklace
as Beatrice Villalobos
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Holes
as Carla Morengo
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Nick of Time
as Ms. Jones
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Holes
as Carla Morengo
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Eraser
as Claire Isaacs
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: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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