Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#49087
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Cyril Cusack represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 45 years in, and Cyril is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cyril Cusack appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cyril. Harold and Maude 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 romance, western, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ron Howard, Michael Radford, Fred Zinnemann and others, Cyril Cusack 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.
Harold and Maude (1971) as Glaucus · The Day of the Jackal (1973) as Gunsmith · Sacco & Vanzetti (1971) as Frederick Katzmann
Career snapshot
Ranked #49087 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1947–1992
Career length
45 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Harold and Maude
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Sacco & Vanzetti
Most frequent director
Ron Howard
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ron Howard
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.0
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
1970s
7.2 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. The Day of the Jackal, Harold and Maude, Sacco & Vanzetti — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.2
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Small Back Room, Odd Man Out.
Most productive era
1970s
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 | 1940s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 7.01 film | 7.22 films | 6.81 film | 6.71 film |
| Action | — | — | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | — | 7.21 film | 6.81 film | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 7.31 film | — | — |
| Crime | 6.91 film | — | — | — | — |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — | 7.31 film | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1947Odd Man Out
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Pat.
Highest rated performance
1971Harold and Maude
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
1971Sacco & Vanzetti
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1992Far and Away
The current state of the argument, as Danty Duff.
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 Frederick Katzmann
Directed by Giuliano Montaldo
as Glaucus
Directed by Hal Ashby
as Captain Beatty
Directed by François Truffaut
as Pat
Directed by Carol Reed
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
Frederick Katzmann
Sacco & Vanzetti (1971)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Frederick Katzmann gives Cyril Cusack a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Glaucus
Harold and Maude (1971)
Performance score7.4
Harold and Maude asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Glaucus is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Captain Beatty
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Performance score7.4
Fahrenheit 451 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Beatty is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pat
Odd Man Out (1947)
Performance score7.3
Odd Man Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pat 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 Frederick Katzmann
Start here. Sacco & Vanzetti is the clearest statement of what Cyril Cusack does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cyril 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.
Odd Man Out (1947)
Keeps the drama register of Sacco & Vanzetti but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Keeps the drama register of Odd Man Out but asks for a colder reading of it.
Harold and Maude (1971)
Keeps the drama register of Fahrenheit 451 but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
A deliberate change of key after Harold and Maude — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Carol Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably Odd Man Out
Michael Powell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Small Back Room
François Truffaut
Director
1 film together
Notably Fahrenheit 451
Giuliano Montaldo
Director
1 film together
Notably Sacco & Vanzetti
Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together
Notably Harold and Maude
Fred Zinnemann
Director
1 film together
Notably The Day of the Jackal
Michael Radford
Director
1 film together
Notably Nineteen Eighty-Four
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Far and Away
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Harold and MaudeFred Zinnemann
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 Day of the JackalGiuliano Montaldo
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sacco & VanzettiFrançois Truffaut
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fahrenheit 451Carol Reed
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Odd Man OutMichael Radford
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nineteen Eighty-FourRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Far and AwayMichael Powell
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Small Back RoomSix 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
Sacco & Vanzetti
as Frederick Katzmann
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Far and Away
as Danty Duff
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Harold and Maude
as Glaucus
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Day of the Jackal
as Gunsmith
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sacco & Vanzetti
as Frederick Katzmann
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. Cyril Cusack 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
45 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
Harold and Maude
as Glaucus
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Day of the Jackal
as Gunsmith
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Far and Away
as Danty Duff
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Odd Man Out
as Pat
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Day of the Jackal
as Gunsmith
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Day of the Jackal
as Gunsmith
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Harold and Maude
as Glaucus
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Nineteen Eighty-Four
as Charrington
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
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Reference
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