Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#25779
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Gerry Black works on transformation 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.
Gerry Black appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Gerry. Re-Animator is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are transformation, versatility, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jake Kasdan, Frank Darabont, Mick Jackson and others, Gerry Black 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.
Re-Animator (1985) as Mace · The Majestic (2001) as Emmett Smith · Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) as Harmonica Player
Career snapshot
Ranked #25779 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1985–2008
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Re-Animator
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Re-Animator
Most frequent director
Jake Kasdan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jake Kasdan
Most common genre
Comedy
3 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
6.4
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
1980s
7.0 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Re-Animator — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Re-Animator.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.01 film | 6.81 film |
| Action | — | 6.01 film | 5.61 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.01 film | — |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | — | 6.12 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Horror | 7.01 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1985Re-Animator
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mace. 7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2001The Majestic
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2008First Sunday
The current state of the argument.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Emmett Smith
Directed by Frank Darabont
as Mace
Directed by Stuart Gordon
as Train Passenger
Directed by Mick Jackson
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
Emmett Smith
The Majestic (2001)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Emmett Smith gives Gerry Black a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mace
Re-Animator (1985)
Performance score6.9
Re-Animator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mace is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Harmonica Player
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Performance score6.6
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harmonica Player is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
First Sunday
First Sunday (2008)
Performance score6.5
First Sunday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role 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 Emmett Smith
Start here. The Majestic is the clearest statement of what Gerry Black does — accessible, 153 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Gerry 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.
Re-Animator (1985)
A deliberate change of key after The Majestic — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Volcano (1997)
Keeps the science fiction register of Re-Animator but asks for a colder reading of it.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Volcano — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
First Sunday (2008)
Keeps the comedy register of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Stuart Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Re-Animator
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably Volcano
Frank Darabont
Director
1 film together
Notably The Majestic
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stuart Gordon
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Re-AnimatorFrank Darabont
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MajesticJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox StoryMick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VolcanoSix 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 Majestic
as Emmett Smith
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Majestic
as Emmett Smith
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Re-Animator
as Mace
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Re-Animator
as Mace
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Majestic
as Emmett Smith
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. Gerry Black 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
23 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
3 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
Re-Animator
as Mace
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Re-Animator
as Mace
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Majestic
as Emmett Smith
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Re-Animator
as Mace
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Re-Animator
as Mace
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Volcano
as Train Passenger
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Majestic
as Emmett Smith
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Majestic
as Emmett Smith
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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