Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7789
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Chad Lindberg represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Chad is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Chad Lindberg appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Chad. The Last Samurai 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, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for music, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Stephen Glover, Rodrigo García, Alain Desrochers and others, Chad Lindberg 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 Samurai (2003) as Winchester Rep Assistant · October Sky (1999) as O'Dell · The Fast and the Furious (2001) as Jesse
Career snapshot
Ranked #7789 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1998–2024
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
The Last Samurai
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
October Sky
Most frequent director
Rob Cohen
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Rob Cohen
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
6.5
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
2000s
7.3 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Last Samurai, The Fast and the Furious — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.3
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. October Sky, Mercury Rising, City of Angels.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.83 films | 7.61 film | — | 6.81 film |
| Action | 6.31 film | 7.32 films | 5.72 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 7.01 film | 5.72 films | — |
| Crime | 6.31 film | 7.01 film | 5.72 films | — |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Mercury Rising
Where our catalogue meets this career, as James.
Career peak
1999October Sky
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2003The Last Samurai
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024American Dream: The 21 Savage Story
The current state of the argument.
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 O'Dell
Directed by Joe Johnston
as Winchester Rep Assistant
Directed by Edward Zwick
as Balford's Son
Directed by Brad Silberling
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
O'Dell
October Sky (1999)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. O'Dell gives Chad Lindberg a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Winchester Rep Assistant
The Last Samurai (2003)
Performance score7.4
The Last Samurai asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Winchester Rep Assistant is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jesse
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Performance score7.1
The Fast and the Furious asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jesse is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Eric
Four Good Days (2021)
Performance score6.7
Four Good Days asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eric 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 O'Dell
Start here. October Sky is the clearest statement of what Chad Lindberg does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Chad 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.
City of Angels (1998)
Keeps the drama register of October Sky but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
A deliberate change of key after City of Angels — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Last Samurai (2003)
Keeps the action register of The Fast and the Furious but asks for a colder reading of it.
Four Good Days (2021)
Keeps the drama register of The Last Samurai but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Rob Cohen
Director
2 films together
Notably The Fast and the Furious
Brad Silberling
Director
1 film together
Notably City of Angels
Joe Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably October Sky
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Samurai
Alain Desrochers
Director
1 film together
Notably Security
Rodrigo García
Director
1 film together
Notably Four Good Days
Stephen Glover
Director
1 film together
Notably American Dream: The 21 Savage Story
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rob Cohen
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Fast and the FuriousEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last SamuraiJoe Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
October SkyRodrigo García
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Four Good DaysBrad Silberling
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City of AngelsAlain Desrochers
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SecurityStephen Glover
Director
1 film together · 4.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American Dream: The 21 Savage StorySix 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 Samurai
as Winchester Rep Assistant
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
City of Angels
as Balford's Son
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 Samurai
as Winchester Rep Assistant
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
City of Angels
as Balford's Son
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
October Sky
as O'Dell
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. Chad Lindberg 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
26 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
5 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
The Last Samurai
as Winchester Rep Assistant
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Fast and the Furious
as Jesse
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
City of Angels
as Balford's Son
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alex Cross
as Vincent Dardis
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Last Samurai
as Winchester Rep Assistant
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Fast and the Furious
as Jesse
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Last Samurai
as Winchester Rep Assistant
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
American Dream: The 21 Savage Story
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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