Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14885
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Cavan Clerkin represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Cavan is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cavan Clerkin appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cavan. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 crime, thriller, war. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Edward Bazalgette, David Kerr, Paul McGuigan, Cavan Clerkin 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.
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023) as Pyrlig · Gangster No. 1 (2000) as Billy · Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) as Castle Guard
Career snapshot
Ranked #14885 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2000–2025
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
Most frequent director
Edward Bazalgette
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Edward Bazalgette
Most common genre
Action
3 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
6.4
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
6.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Odyssey, The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Gangster No. 1.
Most productive era
2010s
2 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Action | 6.41 film | 6.31 film | 7.21 film |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | — | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 5.82 films | — |
| Crime | 6.41 film | — | 5.81 film |
| Horror | — | 5.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2000Gangster No. 1
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Billy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
7.2 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
2025Odyssey
The current state of the argument, as George.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Pyrlig
Directed by Edward Bazalgette
as Castle Guard
Directed by David Kerr
as Billy
Directed by Paul McGuigan
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
Pyrlig
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pyrlig gives Cavan Clerkin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
George
Odyssey (2025)
Performance score6.5
Odyssey asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. George is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dean
Tales from the Lodge (2019)
Performance score6.5
Tales from the Lodge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dean is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Castle Guard
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Performance score6.5
Johnny English Strikes Again asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Castle Guard 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 Pyrlig
Start here. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die is the clearest statement of what Cavan Clerkin does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cavan 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.
Gangster No. 1 (2000)
Keeps the action register of The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die but asks for a colder reading of it.
Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
Keeps the action register of Gangster No. 1 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tales from the Lodge (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of Johnny English Strikes Again but asks for a colder reading of it.
Odyssey (2025)
Same director as Tales from the Lodge, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Edward Bazalgette
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must DiePaul McGuigan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gangster No. 1David Kerr
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Johnny English Strikes AgainSix 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
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Gangster No. 1
as Billy
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Johnny English Strikes Again
as Castle Guard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
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. Cavan Clerkin 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
25 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in action, 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
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gangster No. 1
as Billy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Gangster No. 1
as Billy
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Odyssey
as George
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Johnny English Strikes Again
as Castle Guard
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as Pyrlig
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gangster No. 1
as Billy
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Cillian Murphy
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Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Edward Norton
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Have your say
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Reference
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