Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#49712
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Christian Rub works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Christian Rub appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Christian. Pinocchio 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 fantasy, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jack Kinney, Frank Capra, Victor Fleming and others, Christian Rub 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.
Pinocchio (1940) as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited) · You Can't Take It with You (1938) as Schmidt · Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) as Christian Jenson (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #49712 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1935–1940
Career length
5 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Pinocchio
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
You Can't Take It with You
Most frequent director
Frank Capra
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Frank Capra
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
6.3
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
1940s
7.2 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. Pinocchio — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. You Can't Take It with You, Captains Courageous, Heidi.
Most productive era
1930s
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 | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.84 films | — |
| Comedy | 7.12 films | — |
| Romance | 6.93 films | — |
| Horror | 6.32 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
1940Pinocchio
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. The current state of the argument, as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited).
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.
8 of 8 films
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
Directed by Jack Kinney
as Christian Jenson (uncredited)
Directed by Frank Capra
as Old Clement (uncredited)
Directed by Victor Fleming
as Baker
Directed by Allan Dwan
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
Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
Pinocchio (1940)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Geppetto (voice) (uncredited) gives Christian Rub a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Schmidt
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Performance score7.0
You Can't Take It with You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Schmidt is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Christian Jenson (uncredited)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Performance score7.0
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Christian Jenson (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Old Clement (uncredited)
Captains Courageous (1937)
Performance score6.8
Captains Courageous asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Old Clement (uncredited) 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 Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
Start here. Pinocchio is the clearest statement of what Christian Rub does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 7.2 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.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
A deliberate change of key after Pinocchio — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Captains Courageous (1937)
Keeps the drama register of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town but asks for a colder reading of it.
Heidi (1937)
Keeps the family register of Captains Courageous but asks for a colder reading of it.
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
A deliberate change of key after Heidi — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Frank Capra
Director
2 films together
Notably You Can't Take It with You
Henry Hathaway
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter Ibbetson
Tod Browning
Director
1 film together
Notably Mark of the Vampire
Lambert Hillyer
Director
1 film together
Notably Dracula's Daughter
Allan Dwan
Director
1 film together
Notably Heidi
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Captains Courageous
Jack Kinney
Director
1 film together
Notably Pinocchio
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Frank Capra
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
You Can't Take It with YouJack Kinney
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PinocchioVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captains CourageousAllan Dwan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeidiHenry Hathaway
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter IbbetsonTod Browning
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mark of the VampireLambert Hillyer
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dracula's DaughterSix 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
You Can't Take It with You
as Schmidt
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Pinocchio
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Pinocchio
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
as Christian Jenson (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Pinocchio
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
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 Rub 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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
Pinocchio
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mark of the Vampire
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Pinocchio
as Geppetto (voice) (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mark of the Vampire
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Captains Courageous
as Old Clement (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Captains Courageous
as Old Clement (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
as Christian Jenson (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Dracula's Daughter
as Coach Driver in Transylvania (uncredited)
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
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Reference
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