Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5704
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Selina Cadell 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.
Selina Cadell appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Selina. Match Point is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 comedy, crime, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Hoffman, Clint Eastwood, SJ Clarkson and others, Selina Cadell 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.
Match Point (2005) as Margaret · Snow Cake (2006) as Diane Wooton · The Madness of King George (1994) as Mrs Cordwell
Career snapshot
Ranked #5704 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1994–2012
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Match Point
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Match Point
Most frequent director
Michael Hoffman
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Hoffman
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Nativity!, Wild Child, Snow Cake — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 4 catalogue films 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. The Madness of King George.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 7.13 films | 6.42 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.41 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 6.62 films | 6.02 films |
| Crime | — | — | 5.51 film |
| Romance | — | 7.13 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994The Madness of King George
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mrs Cordwell.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2005Match Point
7.4 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
2012Gambit
The current state of the argument, as Dowager.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Margaret
Directed by Woody Allen
as Diane Wooton
Directed by Marc Evans
as Mrs Cordwell
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
as Ruby
Directed by SJ Clarkson
as Mrs. Loughton
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
Margaret
Match Point (2005)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Margaret gives Selina Cadell a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Diane Wooton
Snow Cake (2006)
Performance score7.0
Snow Cake asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Diane Wooton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mrs Cordwell
The Madness of King George (1994)
Performance score6.7
The Madness of King George asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs Cordwell is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ruby
Toast (2010)
Performance score6.6
Toast asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ruby 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 Margaret
Start here. Match Point is the clearest statement of what Selina Cadell does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Selina 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 Madness of King George (1994)
Keeps the drama register of Match Point but asks for a colder reading of it.
Snow Cake (2006)
Keeps the drama register of The Madness of King George but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wild Child (2008)
Keeps the romance register of Snow Cake but asks for a colder reading of it.
Toast (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Wild Child but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Madness of King George
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Match Point
Marc Evans
Director
1 film together
Notably Snow Cake
SJ Clarkson
Director
1 film together
Notably Toast
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Hereafter
Michael Hoffman
Director
1 film together
Notably Gambit
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Match PointMarc Evans
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Snow CakeNicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Madness of King GeorgeSJ Clarkson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ToastClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HereafterMichael Hoffman
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GambitSix 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
Match Point
as Margaret
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Match Point
as Margaret
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Match Point
as Margaret
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Match Point
as Margaret
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Match Point
as Margaret
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. Selina Cadell 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
6 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
Match Point
as Margaret
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Match Point
as Margaret
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Snow Cake
as Diane Wooton
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hereafter
as Mrs. Joyce
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Match Point
as Margaret
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Snow Cake
as Diane Wooton
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Madness of King George
as Mrs Cordwell
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hereafter
as Mrs. Joyce
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
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 history
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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