Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5138
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Uzo Aduba 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.
Uzo Aduba appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Uzo. Steven Universe: The Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Derek Cianfrance, Tina Mabry, Potsy Ponciroli and others, Uzo Aduba 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.
Steven Universe: The Movie (2019) as Bismuth (voice) · My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) as Queen Novo (voice) · Roofman (2025) as Eileen
Career snapshot
Ranked #5138 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2015–2025
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Steven Universe: The Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Steven Universe: The Movie
Most frequent director
Derek Cianfrance
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Derek Cianfrance
Most common genre
Drama
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
6.3
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
6.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Roofman, The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat, Greedy People — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.7
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Steven Universe: The Movie, Beats, We Are Boats.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.44 films | 6.74 films |
| Comedy | 6.33 films | 6.73 films |
| Crime | 6.21 film | 6.72 films |
| Romance | 6.11 film | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2015Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
Where our catalogue meets this career, as TSA Officer.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Steven Universe: The Movie
7.7 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
2025Roofman
The current state of the argument, as Eileen.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Bismuth (voice)
Directed by Rebecca Sugar
as Queen Novo (voice)
Directed by Jayson Thiessen
as Carla Monroe
Directed by Chris Robinson
as Eileen
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
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
Bismuth (voice)
Steven Universe: The Movie (2019)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bismuth (voice) gives Uzo Aduba a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Queen Novo (voice)
My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)
Performance score7.2
My Little Pony: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Queen Novo (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Clarice Baker
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (2024)
Performance score7.1
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Clarice Baker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Carla Monroe
Beats (2019)
Performance score7.1
Beats asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carla Monroe 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 Bismuth (voice)
Start here. Steven Universe: The Movie is the clearest statement of what Uzo Aduba does — accessible, 83 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Uzo 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.
My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)
Keeps the fantasy register of Steven Universe: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Beats (2019)
A deliberate change of key after My Little Pony: The Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Beats but asks for a colder reading of it.
Roofman (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ewan McGregor
Director
1 film together
Notably American Pastoral
Sian Heder
Director
1 film together
Notably Tallulah
Jayson Thiessen
Director
1 film together
Notably My Little Pony: The Movie
Chris Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Beats
Rebecca Sugar
Director
1 film together
Notably Steven Universe: The Movie
Ric Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together
Notably National Champions
Potsy Ponciroli
Director
1 film together
Notably Greedy People
Tina Mabry
Director
1 film together
Notably The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
Derek Cianfrance
Director
1 film together
Notably Roofman
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rebecca Sugar
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Steven Universe: The MovieJayson Thiessen
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Little Pony: The MovieDerek Cianfrance
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoofmanTina Mabry
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-EatChris Robinson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BeatsSian Heder
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TallulahRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
National ChampionsPotsy Ponciroli
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Greedy PeopleEwan McGregor
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American PastoralSix 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
Roofman
as Eileen
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
My Little Pony: The Movie
as Queen Novo (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
Steven Universe: The Movie
as Bismuth (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Beyond Infinity: Buzz and the Journey to Lightyear
as Self / Alisha Hawthorne
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Steven Universe: The Movie
as Bismuth (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. Uzo Aduba 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
8 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
Steven Universe: The Movie
as Bismuth (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Greedy People
as Murphy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Really Love
as Chenai Hungwe
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Greedy People
as Murphy
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Steven Universe: The Movie
as Bismuth (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Lightyear
as Alisha Hawthorne (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
as TSA Officer
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Beats
as Carla Monroe
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
Which Uzo Aduba performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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