Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10871
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Barry Livingston represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Barry is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Barry Livingston appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Barry. Zodiac 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, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Fincher, Roberto Sneider, Todd Phillips and others, Barry Livingston 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.
Zodiac (2007) as Copy Editor #3 · The Social Network (2010) as Mr. Cox · Argo (2012) as David Marmor
Career snapshot
Ranked #10871 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1987–2026
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Zodiac
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Zodiac
Most frequent director
David Fincher
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With David Fincher
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.6
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. War Dogs, Jersey Boys, Argo — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Masters of the Universe.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.21 film | 7.14 films | 4.33 films |
| Action | 5.91 film | 5.71 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.71 film | 7.31 film | 0.01 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.02 films | 6.82 films | 0.01 film |
| Crime | — | 7.71 film | 6.82 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Charlie.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2007Zodiac
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
2026The Adventures of Cliff Booth
The current state of the argument, as Disco Kingpin.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Copy Editor #3
Directed by David Fincher
as David Marmor
Directed by Ben Affleck
as Jeremy Libiszewski
Directed by Unknown
as Army Bureaucrat
Directed by Todd Phillips
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
Copy Editor #3
Zodiac (2007)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Copy Editor #3 gives Barry Livingston a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
David Marmor
Argo (2012)
Performance score7.2
Argo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. David Marmor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Cox
The Social Network (2010)
Performance score7.2
The Social Network asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Cox is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jeremy Libiszewski
Notorious Nick (2021)
Performance score6.9
Notorious Nick asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jeremy Libiszewski 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 Copy Editor #3
Start here. Zodiac is the clearest statement of what Barry Livingston does — accessible, 157 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Barry 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.
The Social Network (2010)
Same director as Zodiac, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Argo (2012)
Keeps the drama register of The Social Network but asks for a colder reading of it.
War Dogs (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Argo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Notorious Nick (2021)
Keeps the drama register of War Dogs but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Fincher
Director
3 films together
Notably Zodiac
Forest Whitaker
Director
1 film together
Notably First Daughter
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Seth Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Horrible Bosses
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Argo
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Jersey Boys
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably War Dogs
Roberto Sneider
Director
1 film together
Notably Looking Through Water
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Fincher
Director
3 films together · 5.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ZodiacBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArgoTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
War DogsClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jersey BoysSeth Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Horrible BossesRoberto Sneider
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Looking Through WaterForest Whitaker
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
First DaughterDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Don't Mess with the ZohanSix 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
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Jersey Boys
as Accountant
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
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. Barry Livingston 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
39 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
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
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Jersey Boys
as Accountant
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
as Gray Kleibolt
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
First Daughter
as Press Secretary
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Zodiac
as Copy Editor #3
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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