Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10146
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Stacey Travis represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Stacey is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Stacey Travis appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Stacey. Ghost World is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 mystery, horror, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Axelle Carolyn, Will Gluck, Terry Zwigoff and others, Stacey Travis 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.
Ghost World (2001) as Dana · Traffic (2000) as Helena's Friend · Easy A (2010) as Marianne's Mom
Career snapshot
Ranked #10146 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1988–2021
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Ghost World
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Ghost World
Most frequent director
Terry Zwigoff
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Terry Zwigoff
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
2010s
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Easy A — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Earth Girls Are Easy.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | — | — | 6.44 films | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.11 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 5.61 film | 5.21 film | 6.18 films | 6.81 film | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.44 films | — | — |
| Romance | 5.61 film | 5.21 film | 5.82 films | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tammy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2000Traffic
7.1 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
2021The Manor
The current state of the argument, as Ms. Benson.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Dana
Directed by Terry Zwigoff
as Ms. Benson
Directed by Axelle Carolyn
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
Dana
Ghost World (2001)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dana gives Stacey Travis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Helena's Friend
Traffic (2000)
Performance score7.0
Traffic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Helena's Friend is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marianne's Mom
Easy A (2010)
Performance score6.7
Easy A asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marianne's Mom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ms. Benson
The Manor (2021)
Performance score6.5
The Manor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ms. Benson 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 Dana
Start here. Ghost World is the clearest statement of what Stacey Travis does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Stacey 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.
Traffic (2000)
Keeps the drama register of Ghost World but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Great Buck Howard (2008)
Same director as Traffic, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Easy A (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of The Great Buck Howard but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Manor (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Easy A — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Terry Zwigoff
Director
2 films together
Notably Ghost World
Albert Brooks
Director
1 film together
Notably The Muse
Mike Nichols
Director
1 film together
Notably What Planet Are You From?
David Mirkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Heartbreakers
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bandits
Jessy Terrero
Director
1 film together
Notably Soul Plane
Dean Parisot
Director
1 film together
Notably Fun with Dick and Jane
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably Easy A
Axelle Carolyn
Director
1 film together
Notably The Manor
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Terry Zwigoff
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Ghost WorldWill Gluck
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Easy ABarry 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
BanditsDean Parisot
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fun with Dick and JaneDavid Mirkin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeartbreakersAxelle Carolyn
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ManorJessy Terrero
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Soul PlaneMike Nichols
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Planet Are You From?Albert Brooks
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MuseSix 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
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
What Planet Are You From?
as Woman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ghost World
as Dana
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. Stacey Travis 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
33 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Ghost World
as Dana
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
What Planet Are You From?
as Woman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Manor
as Ms. Benson
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Traffic
as Helena's Friend
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bandits
as Cloe Miller
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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