Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9789
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Stephen Rea represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Stephen is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Stephen Rea appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Stephen. V for Vendetta is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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, drama, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Conleth Hill, Neil Jordan and others, Stephen Rea 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.
V for Vendetta (2006) as Finch · Disclosure (2020) as Fergus (archive footage) · The Ghost of Richard Harris (2022) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #9789 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1994–2023
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
V for Vendetta
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
V for Vendetta
Most frequent director
Neil Jordan
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Neil Jordan
Most common genre
Drama
9 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
6.4
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Reaping, V for Vendetta, Breakfast on Pluto — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
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 End of the Affair, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.93 films | 6.62 films | 6.53 films | 6.31 film |
| Action | — | 8.11 film | 6.31 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 7.02 films | 6.61 film | — |
| Comedy | 5.21 film | 7.21 film | — | 6.31 film |
| Romance | 6.61 film | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Horror | 7.51 film | 5.81 film | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Interview with the Vampire
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Santiago.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006V for Vendetta
8.1 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
2023The Miracle Club
The current state of the argument, as Frank Dunne.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Finch
Directed by James McTeigue
as Fergus (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
as Santiago
Directed by Neil Jordan
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
Finch
V for Vendetta (2006)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Finch gives Stephen Rea a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Fergus (archive footage)
Disclosure (2020)
Performance score7.6
Disclosure asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fergus (archive footage) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bertie
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Performance score7.6
Breakfast on Pluto asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bertie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Santiago
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Performance score7.6
Interview with the Vampire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Santiago 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 Finch
Start here. V for Vendetta is the clearest statement of what Stephen Rea does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Stephen 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.
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
A deliberate change of key after V for Vendetta — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Same director as Interview with the Vampire, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Disclosure (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Breakfast on Pluto — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Ghost of Richard Harris (2022)
Same director as Disclosure, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Neil Jordan
Director
6 films together
Notably Interview with the Vampire
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably Prêt-à-Porter
Roland Suso Richter
Director
1 film together
Notably The I Inside
James McTeigue
Director
1 film together
Notably V for Vendetta
Stephen Hopkins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Reaping
Björn Stein
Director
1 film together
Notably Underworld: Awakening
Conleth Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Sadie
Thaddeus O'Sullivan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Miracle Club
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Neil Jordan
Director
6 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Interview with the VampireJames McTeigue
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
V for VendettaThaddeus O'Sullivan
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Miracle ClubBjörn Stein
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Underworld: AwakeningRoland Suso Richter
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The I InsideStephen Hopkins
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ReapingRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Prêt-à-PorterConleth Hill
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SadieSix 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
V for Vendetta
as Finch
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The End of the Affair
as Henry Miles
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
V for Vendetta
as Finch
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Disclosure
as Fergus (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
V for Vendetta
as Finch
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. Stephen Rea 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
29 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
9 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
V for Vendetta
as Finch
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
V for Vendetta
as Finch
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ondine
as Priest
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Greta
as Brian Cody
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
V for Vendetta
as Finch
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
V for Vendetta
as Finch
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The End of the Affair
as Henry Miles
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
V for Vendetta
as Finch
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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