Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20185
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Faizon Love 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.
Faizon Love appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Faizon. The Last Stop in Yuma County is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Chris Spencer, Tim Hill, Don Michael Paul and others, Faizon Love 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 Last Stop in Yuma County (2024) as Vernon · Elf (2003) as Gimbels Manager · The Replacements (2000) as Jamal Jackson
Career snapshot
Ranked #20185 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2000–2024
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
The Last Stop in Yuma County
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
The Last Stop in Yuma County
Most frequent director
Jon Favreau
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jon Favreau
Most common genre
Comedy
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
2020s
6.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Last Stop in Yuma County, Back on the Strip, The War with Grandpa — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.3
Across 5 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
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Couples Retreat, Elf, Made.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.81 film | 5.51 film | 6.72 films |
| Action | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.51 film | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | 6.24 films | 5.51 film | 6.24 films |
| Crime | 5.81 film | — | 6.62 films |
| Romance | 5.61 film | 5.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
2000The Replacements
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jamal Jackson. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2024The Last Stop in Yuma County
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Vernon.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Jack Carter
Directed by Don Michael Paul
as Jamal Jackson
Directed by Howard Deutch
as Gimbels Manager
Directed by Jon Favreau
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
Jack Carter
Bulletproof 2 (2020)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jack Carter gives Faizon Love a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jamal Jackson
The Replacements (2000)
Performance score6.9
The Replacements asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jamal Jackson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Vernon
The Last Stop in Yuma County (2024)
Performance score6.8
The Last Stop in Yuma County asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Vernon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gimbels Manager
Elf (2003)
Performance score6.6
Elf asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gimbels Manager 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 Jack Carter
Start here. Bulletproof 2 is the clearest statement of what Faizon Love does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 6.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Faizon 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.
The Replacements (2000)
Keeps the comedy register of Bulletproof 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Elf (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of The Replacements but asks for a colder reading of it.
Back on the Strip (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Elf but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Last Stop in Yuma County (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Back on the Strip — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jon Favreau
Director
2 films together
Notably Elf
Howard Deutch
Director
1 film together
Notably The Replacements
Peter Billingsley
Director
1 film together
Notably Couples Retreat
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably Zookeeper
Lee Daniels
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paperboy
Nick Cannon
Director
1 film together
Notably She Ball
Don Michael Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Bulletproof 2
Tim Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably The War with Grandpa
Chris Spencer
Director
1 film together
Notably Back on the Strip
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jon Favreau
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ElfHoward Deutch
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ReplacementsTim Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The War with GrandpaNick Cannon
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She BallDon Michael Paul
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bulletproof 2Chris Spencer
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Back on the StripPeter Billingsley
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Couples RetreatLee Daniels
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PaperboyFrank Coraci
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ZookeeperSix 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 Replacements
as Jamal Jackson
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Zookeeper
as Bruce the Bear (voice)
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 Last Stop in Yuma County
as Vernon
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Paperboy
as Comedian
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Bulletproof 2
as Jack Carter
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. Faizon Love 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
24 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
9 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
Elf
as Gimbels Manager
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Last Stop in Yuma County
as Vernon
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Zookeeper
as Bruce the Bear (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Paperboy
as Comedian
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Bulletproof 2
as Jack Carter
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bulletproof 2
as Jack Carter
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Made
as Horrace
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Zookeeper
as Bruce the Bear (voice)
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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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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