Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Christopher Hayes appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Christopher. Fatherhood is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 music, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with T.W. Peacocke, Azazel Jacobs, Paul Weitz and others, Christopher Hayes 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.
Fatherhood (2021) as Husband · Best Sellers (2021) as News Anchor · Single All the Way (2021) as Philip
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Christopher Hayes.
Films in Nutevio
8
2019–2023
Career length
4 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Fatherhood
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Fatherhood
Most frequent director
T.W. Peacocke
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With T.W. Peacocke
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.1
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
6.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Spinning Gold, Catering Christmas, French Exit — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.4
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Dark Phoenix, Murder Mystery.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.44 films |
| Action | 6.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 6.55 films |
| Crime | 6.41 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2019Dark Phoenix
Where our catalogue meets this career, as UN Reporter #1 (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Fatherhood
7.3 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
2023Spinning Gold
The current state of the argument, as Damon.
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 Husband
Directed by Paul Weitz
as Leo Bradford
Directed by T.W. Peacocke
as Damon
Directed by Unknown
as Waiter on Ship
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
as News Anchor
Directed by Lina Roessler
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
Husband
Fatherhood (2021)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Husband gives Christopher Hayes a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leo Bradford
Catering Christmas (2022)
Performance score6.8
Catering Christmas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leo Bradford is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Damon
Spinning Gold (2023)
Performance score6.5
Spinning Gold asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Damon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Waiter on Ship
French Exit (2021)
Performance score6.5
French Exit asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Waiter on Ship 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 Husband
Start here. Fatherhood is the clearest statement of what Christopher Hayes does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Christopher 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.
French Exit (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Fatherhood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Best Sellers (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of French Exit but asks for a colder reading of it.
Catering Christmas (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Best Sellers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Spinning Gold (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Catering Christmas — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kyle Newacheck
Director
1 film together
Notably Murder Mystery
Simon Kinberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Phoenix
Lina Roessler
Director
1 film together
Notably Best Sellers
Paul Weitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Fatherhood
Azazel Jacobs
Director
1 film together
Notably French Exit
T.W. Peacocke
Director
1 film together
Notably Catering Christmas
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Weitz
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FatherhoodLina Roessler
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Best SellersKyle Newacheck
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Murder MysteryT.W. Peacocke
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Catering ChristmasSimon Kinberg
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark PhoenixAzazel Jacobs
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
French ExitSix 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
Fatherhood
as Husband
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spinning Gold
as Damon
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Fatherhood
as Husband
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dark Phoenix
as UN Reporter #1 (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Fatherhood
as Husband
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. Christopher Hayes 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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
Fatherhood
as Husband
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Murder Mystery
as Lounge Bartender (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spinning Gold
as Damon
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Murder Mystery
as Lounge Bartender (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dark Phoenix
as UN Reporter #1 (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dark Phoenix
as UN Reporter #1 (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fatherhood
as Husband
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spinning Gold
as Damon
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Mark Ruffalo
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Harvey Keitel
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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