Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#998
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Christian Clemenson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Christian is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Christian Clemenson appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Christian. The Big Lebowski is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 romance, comedy, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Greg Berlanti, James Wan, Ben Affleck and others, Christian Clemenson 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 Big Lebowski (1998) as Younger Cop · Apollo 13 (1995) as Dr. Chuck · Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) as Larry
Career snapshot
Ranked #998 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1986–2024
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Big Lebowski
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Big Lebowski
Most frequent director
Greg Berlanti
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Greg Berlanti
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.8
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
1980s
6.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Hannah and Her Sisters, Heartburn — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.7
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. Hannah and Her Sisters, Heartburn.
Most productive era
1990s
7 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 | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.92 films | 6.32 films | 6.61 film |
| Action | — | 6.72 films | 6.31 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.01 film | 6.31 film | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | 6.82 films | 6.73 films | — | 6.81 film |
| Crime | — | 7.02 films | 6.32 films | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.01 film | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Larry.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1998The Big Lebowski
8.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Walter.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Younger Cop
Directed by Joel Coen
as Dr. Chuck
Directed by Ron Howard
as Droning Guy
Directed by Michael Bay
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
Younger Cop
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Younger Cop gives Christian Clemenson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Chuck
Apollo 13 (1995)
Performance score7.3
Apollo 13 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Chuck is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Larry
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Performance score7.3
Hannah and Her Sisters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Larry is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Droning Guy
Armageddon (1998)
Performance score6.9
Armageddon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Droning Guy 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 Younger Cop
Start here. The Big Lebowski is the clearest statement of what Christian Clemenson does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Christian 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.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Keeps the comedy register of The Big Lebowski but asks for a colder reading of it.
Apollo 13 (1995)
Keeps the drama register of Hannah and Her Sisters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Armageddon (1998)
A deliberate change of key after Apollo 13 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Armageddon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mike Nichols
Director
1 film together
Notably Heartburn
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Hannah and Her Sisters
Curtis Hanson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Influence
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together
Notably Hero
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Apollo 13
Ron Underwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Mighty Joe Young
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Armageddon
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Lebowski
Christopher Guest
Director
1 film together
Notably Almost Heroes
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably J. Edgar
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Live by Night
James Wan
Director
1 film together
Notably Malignant
Greg Berlanti
Director
1 film together
Notably Fly Me to the Moon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big LebowskiRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Apollo 13Woody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hannah and Her SistersMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArmageddonGreg Berlanti
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fly Me to the MoonJames Wan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MalignantBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live by NightRon Underwood
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mighty Joe YoungStephen Frears
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeroClint 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
J. EdgarCurtis Hanson
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad InfluenceMike Nichols
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeartburnChristopher Guest
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Almost HeroesSix 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 Big Lebowski
as Younger Cop
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Apollo 13
as Dr. Chuck
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 Big Lebowski
as Younger Cop
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Armageddon
as Droning Guy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Big Lebowski
as Younger Cop
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. Christian Clemenson 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.
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
7 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 Big Lebowski
as Younger Cop
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Big Lebowski
as Younger Cop
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Apollo 13
as Dr. Chuck
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Malignant
as Dr. Victor Fields
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Armageddon
as Droning Guy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Armageddon
as Droning Guy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Heartburn
as Sidney
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Almost Heroes
as Father Girard
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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