Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2742
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ed Skrein 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.
Ed Skrein appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ed. Deadpool is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gareth Edwards, Zack Snyder, Ana Lily Amirpour and others, Ed Skrein 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.
Deadpool (2016) as Ajax · Alita: Battle Angel (2019) as Zapan · Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) as Borra
Career snapshot
Ranked #2742 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2012–2025
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Deadpool
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Deadpool
Most frequent director
Zack Snyder
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Zack Snyder
Most common genre
Action
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Alita: Battle Angel, Midway, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Alita: Battle Angel, Midway, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
Most productive era
2010s
9 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 | 6.53 films | 5.82 films |
| Action | 6.64 films | 6.33 films |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 7.91 film | 7.01 film |
| Crime | 5.71 film | 4.61 film |
| Romance | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | 6.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012The Sweeney
Where our catalogue meets this career, as David.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2016Deadpool
7.9 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 Bobby Atwater.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Ajax
Directed by Tim Miller
as Lieutenant Richard 'Dick' Best
Directed by Roland Emmerich
as Zapan
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
as Borra
Directed by Joachim Rønning
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
Ajax
Deadpool (2016)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ajax gives Ed Skrein a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lieutenant Richard 'Dick' Best
Midway (2019)
Performance score7.7
Midway asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lieutenant Richard 'Dick' Best is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Vince
I Used to Be Famous (2022)
Performance score7.6
I Used to Be Famous asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Vince is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Zapan
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Performance score7.4
Alita: Battle Angel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zapan 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 Ajax
Start here. Deadpool is the clearest statement of what Ed Skrein does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ed 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.
Midway (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Deadpool — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Midway — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Keeps the adventure register of Alita: Battle Angel but asks for a colder reading of it.
I Used to Be Famous (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent: Mistress of Evil — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Zack Snyder
Director
2 films together
Notably Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire
Nick Love
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sweeney
Claudio Fäh
Director
1 film together
Notably Northmen: A Viking Saga
Tim Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Deadpool
Anthony Byrne
Director
1 film together
Notably In Darkness
Barry Jenkins
Director
1 film together
Notably If Beale Street Could Talk
Joachim Rønning
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Roland Emmerich
Director
1 film together
Notably Midway
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably Alita: Battle Angel
Ana Lily Amirpour
Director
1 film together
Notably Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World Rebirth
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Zack Snyder
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of FireTim Miller
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DeadpoolRobert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alita: Battle AngelJoachim Rønning
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maleficent: Mistress of EvilRoland Emmerich
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MidwayBarry Jenkins
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
If Beale Street Could TalkGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World RebirthAna Lily Amirpour
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mona Lisa and the Blood MoonAnthony Byrne
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In DarknessNick Love
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SweeneyClaudio Fäh
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Northmen: A Viking SagaSix 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
Deadpool
as Ajax
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
If Beale Street Could Talk
as Officer Bell
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Deadpool
as Ajax
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
If Beale Street Could Talk
as Officer Bell
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Deadpool
as Ajax
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. Ed Skrein 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Action Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in action, 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
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
as Borra
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Deadpool
as Ajax
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
If Beale Street Could Talk
as Officer Bell
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
as Fuzz
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Deadpool
as Ajax
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver
as Atticus Noble
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
I Used to Be Famous
as Vince
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Deadpool
as Ajax
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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