Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alan Tilvern appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alan. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, fantasy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Zemeckis, Frank Oz, Clint Eastwood and others, Alan Tilvern 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.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as R.K. Maroon · Superman (1978) as 2nd Controller · Love and Death (1975) as Sergeant
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Alan Tilvern.
Films in Nutevio
9
1950–1988
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Most frequent director
Robert Zemeckis
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Robert Zemeckis
Most common genre
Adventure
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
6.9
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
1970s
7.0 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Superman, The Lord of the Rings, Love and Death — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Knights of the Round Table, Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., Night and the City.
Most productive era
1950s
3 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 | 1950s | 1970s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.62 films | — | — |
| Action | 6.21 film | 7.21 film | 6.21 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.21 film | 7.32 films |
| Crime | 7.01 film | — | 7.61 film |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Beggar (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
7.6 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. The current state of the argument, as R.K. Maroon.
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.
9 of 9 films
as R.K. Maroon
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
as 2nd Controller
Directed by Richard Donner
as Sergeant
Directed by Woody Allen
as Beggar (uncredited)
Directed by Jules Dassin
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
R.K. Maroon
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. R.K. Maroon gives Alan Tilvern a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
2nd Controller
Superman (1978)
Performance score7.1
Superman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. 2nd Controller is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sergeant
Love and Death (1975)
Performance score7.1
Love and Death asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sergeant is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Beggar (uncredited)
Night and the City (1950)
Performance score6.9
Night and the City asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Beggar (uncredited) 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 R.K. Maroon
Start here. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the clearest statement of what Alan Tilvern does — accessible, 104 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alan 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.
Night and the City (1950)
Keeps the crime register of Who Framed Roger Rabbit but asks for a colder reading of it.
Love and Death (1975)
A deliberate change of key after Night and the City — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Superman (1978)
A deliberate change of key after Love and Death — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
A deliberate change of key after Superman — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jules Dassin
Director
1 film together
Notably Night and the City
Raoul Walsh
Director
1 film together
Notably Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.
Richard Thorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably Knights of the Round Table
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Love and Death
Ralph Bakshi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lord of the Rings
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Firefox
Frank Oz
Director
1 film together
Notably Little Shop of Horrors
Robert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together
Notably Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Who Framed Roger RabbitRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupermanWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love and DeathJules Dassin
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night and the CityFrank Oz
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Little Shop of HorrorsRaoul Walsh
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.Ralph Bakshi
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lord of the RingsClint 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
FirefoxRichard Thorpe
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Knights of the Round TableSix 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
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
as R.K. Maroon
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Knights of the Round Table
as Steward (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
as R.K. Maroon
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Superman
as 2nd Controller
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
as R.K. Maroon
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. Alan Tilvern 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
38 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in adventure, 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
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
as R.K. Maroon
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Night and the City
as Beggar (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Knights of the Round Table
as Steward (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Lord of the Rings
as Innkeeper (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Superman
as 2nd Controller
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Superman
as 2nd Controller
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
as R.K. Maroon
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Knights of the Round Table
as Steward (uncredited)
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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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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