Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13261
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Grainger Hines represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 46 years in, and Grainger is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Grainger Hines appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Grainger. Rocky II 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 western, action, tv movie. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with William Shockley, Joel Coen, Jason Bateman and others, Grainger Hines 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.
Rocky II (1979) as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited) · The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) as Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled") · Lincoln (2012) as Gideon Welles
Career snapshot
Ranked #13261 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1979–2025
Career length
46 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Rocky II
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Rocky II
Most frequent director
William Shockley
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With William Shockley
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
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
6.8
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
7.3 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Rocky II — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Rocky II.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1970s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.31 film | 6.63 films | — |
| Action | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.52 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1979Rocky II
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited). 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
2025Long Shadows
The current state of the argument, as Wesley Tibbs.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
Directed by Sylvester Stallone
as Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled")
Directed by Joel Coen
as Gideon Welles
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Wesley Tibbs
Directed by William Shockley
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
Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
Rocky II (1979)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Emergency Room Aide (uncredited) gives Grainger Hines a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled")
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Performance score7.0
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled") is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Gideon Welles
Lincoln (2012)
Performance score6.8
Lincoln asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gideon Welles is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Wesley Tibbs
Long Shadows (2025)
Performance score6.5
Long Shadows asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wesley Tibbs 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 Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
Start here. Rocky II is the clearest statement of what Grainger Hines does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Grainger 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.
Lincoln (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Rocky II but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Lincoln but asks for a colder reading of it.
Muzzle (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The Ballad of Buster Scruggs — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Long Shadows (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Muzzle — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sylvester Stallone
Director
1 film together
Notably Rocky II
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Lincoln
Jason Bateman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Family Fang
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
William Shockley
Director
1 film together
Notably Long Shadows
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sylvester Stallone
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rocky IIJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ballad of Buster ScruggsSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LincolnJason Bateman
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Family FangWilliam Shockley
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Long ShadowsSix 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
Rocky II
as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Lincoln
as Gideon Welles
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Rocky II
as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Lincoln
as Gideon Welles
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Rocky II
as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
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. Grainger Hines 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
46 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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
Rocky II
as Emergency Room Aide (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Muzzle
as Aldo Damon
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lincoln
as Gideon Welles
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Family Fang
as Sheriff Hale
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
as Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled")
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Muzzle
as Aldo Damon
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
as Mr. Arthur (segment "The Gal Who Got Rattled")
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Family Fang
as Sheriff Hale
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: drama and thriller
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and drama
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Grainger Hines performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
