Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6937
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Suzy Nakamura represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Suzy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Suzy Nakamura appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Suzy. Luck is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, action, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jim Rash, Michael Keaton, Joey Soloway and others, Suzy Nakamura 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.
Luck (2022) as Social Worker (voice) · Above the Line (2025) as Mary · Knox Goes Away (2024) as Detective Emily Ikari
Career snapshot
Ranked #6937 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1998–2026
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Luck
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Luck
Most frequent director
Jim Rash
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jim Rash
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
2020s
7.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Miss You, Love You, Above the Line, Knox Goes Away — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.2
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.2
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. Deep Impact.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 6.41 film | — | 5.71 film | 7.02 films |
| Action | 6.41 film | — | — | 7.22 films |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.05 films | 5.71 film | 7.62 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 7.22 films |
| Romance | — | 6.22 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Deep Impact
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jenny's Assistant.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022Luck
7.8 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
The current state of the argument, as Kathy.
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 Mary
Directed by Unknown
as Detective Emily Ikari
Directed by Michael Keaton
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
Social Worker (voice)
Luck (2022)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Social Worker (voice) gives Suzy Nakamura a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mary
Above the Line (2025)
Performance score7.2
Above the Line asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Detective Emily Ikari
Knox Goes Away (2024)
Performance score7.1
Knox Goes Away asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Detective Emily Ikari is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kathy
Miss You, Love You (2026)
Performance score7.0
Miss You, Love You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kathy 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 Social Worker (voice)
Start here. Luck is the clearest statement of what Suzy Nakamura does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Suzy 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.
Afternoon Delight (2013)
Keeps the comedy register of Luck but asks for a colder reading of it.
Knox Goes Away (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Afternoon Delight — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Above the Line (2025)
Keeps the action register of Knox Goes Away but asks for a colder reading of it.
Miss You, Love You (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Above the Line but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mimi Leder
Director
1 film together
Notably Deep Impact
Gary David Goldberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Must Love Dogs
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably The 40 Year Old Virgin
Christopher Guest
Director
1 film together
Notably For Your Consideration
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Evan Almighty
Joey Soloway
Director
1 film together
Notably Afternoon Delight
Michael Keaton
Director
1 film together
Notably Knox Goes Away
Jim Rash
Director
1 film together
Notably Miss You, Love You
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Keaton
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Knox Goes AwayJim Rash
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miss You, Love YouJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The 40 Year Old VirginMimi Leder
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deep ImpactGary David Goldberg
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Must Love DogsChristopher Guest
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For Your ConsiderationJoey Soloway
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Afternoon DelightTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Evan AlmightySix 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
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The 40 Year Old Virgin
as Speed Dater (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
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. Suzy Nakamura 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
28 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
8 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
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Knox Goes Away
as Detective Emily Ikari
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Above the Line
as Mary
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Knox Goes Away
as Detective Emily Ikari
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Luck
as Social Worker (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Deep Impact
as Jenny's Assistant
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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