Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4684
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Bob Clendenin represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Bob is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Bob Clendenin appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bob. L.A. Confidential 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 comedy, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Damien Chazelle, Andy Fickman, Zach Braff and others, Bob Clendenin 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.
L.A. Confidential (1997) as Reporter at Hollywood Station · Star Trek (2009) as Shipyard Worker · Babylon (2022) as Otto's Assistant Director
Career snapshot
Ranked #4684 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1997–2024
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
L.A. Confidential
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
L.A. Confidential
Most frequent director
Andy Fickman
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Andy Fickman
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
1990s
7.4 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Thirteenth Floor, L.A. Confidential — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.4
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.4
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 Thirteenth Floor, L.A. Confidential.
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 | — | 5.72 films | 6.51 film | 7.31 film |
| Action | — | 6.72 films | 5.21 film | — |
| Thriller | 7.42 films | 5.42 films | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.81 film | 5.82 films | 7.02 films |
| Crime | 7.81 film | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.11 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Reporter at Hollywood Station. 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
2024LaRoy, Texas
The current state of the argument, as Ben Finney.
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 Reporter at Hollywood Station
Directed by Curtis Hanson
as Shipyard Worker
Directed by J.J. Abrams
as Otto's Assistant Director
Directed by Damien Chazelle
as Ben Finney
Directed by Unknown
as Bank Manager
Directed by Josef Rusnak
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
Reporter at Hollywood Station
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Reporter at Hollywood Station gives Bob Clendenin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Shipyard Worker
Star Trek (2009)
Performance score7.4
Star Trek asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shipyard Worker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Otto's Assistant Director
Babylon (2022)
Performance score7.2
Babylon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Otto's Assistant Director is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ben Finney
LaRoy, Texas (2024)
Performance score7.0
LaRoy, Texas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben Finney 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 Reporter at Hollywood Station
Start here. L.A. Confidential is the clearest statement of what Bob Clendenin does — accessible, 138 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bob 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 Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Keeps the mystery register of L.A. Confidential but asks for a colder reading of it.
Star Trek (2009)
Keeps the science fiction register of The Thirteenth Floor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Babylon (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Star Trek — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
LaRoy, Texas (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Babylon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brad Silberling
Director
2 films together
Notably Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Andy Fickman
Director
2 films together
Notably Race to Witch Mountain
Curtis Hanson
Director
1 film together
Notably L.A. Confidential
Josef Rusnak
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thirteenth Floor
Janusz Kamiński
Director
1 film together
Notably Lost Souls
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek
Zach Braff
Director
1 film together
Notably Wish I Was Here
Damien Chazelle
Director
1 film together
Notably Babylon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brad Silberling
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsAndy Fickman
Director
2 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Race to Witch MountainCurtis Hanson
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
L.A. ConfidentialJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star TrekDamien Chazelle
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BabylonJosef Rusnak
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thirteenth FloorZach Braff
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wish I Was HereJanusz Kamiński
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lost SoulsSix 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
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Moonlight Mile
as Server #1
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Star Trek
as Shipyard Worker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
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. Bob Clendenin 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
27 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
5 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
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Moonlight Mile
as Server #1
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
L.A. Confidential
as Reporter at Hollywood Station
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Trek
as Shipyard Worker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Trek
as Shipyard Worker
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Babylon
as Otto's Assistant Director
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Trek
as Shipyard Worker
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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