Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5588
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jack Kesy 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.
Jack Kesy appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jack. Deadpool 2 is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, western, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tim Story, Brian Taylor, Tony Schiena and others, Jack Kesy 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 2 (2018) as Black Tom · Once Upon a Deadpool (2018) as Black Tom · Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021) as Thunder
Career snapshot
Ranked #5588 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2017–2026
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Deadpool 2
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Deadpool 2
Most frequent director
David Leitch
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Leitch
Most common genre
Action
14 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
6.1
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. Hot Summer Nights, Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Deadpool — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 6 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. Hot Summer Nights, Deadpool 2, Once Upon a Deadpool.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 6.43 films | 3.52 films |
| Action | 6.75 films | 5.49 films |
| Thriller | 6.21 film | 6.54 films |
| Comedy | 6.93 films | 6.03 films |
| Crime | 6.33 films | 6.33 films |
| Horror | — | 5.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Baywatch
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Leon.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Deadpool 2
7.5 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.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Black Tom
Directed by David Leitch
as Black Tom
Directed by David Leitch
as Thunder
Directed by Stefano Sollima
as Sgt. Josh Kirk
Directed by Rod Lurie
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
William Bang
Bang (2025)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. William Bang gives Jack Kesy a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Black Tom
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Performance score7.3
Deadpool 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Black Tom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Black Tom
Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)
Performance score7.0
Once Upon a Deadpool asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Black Tom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Thunder
Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021)
Performance score6.8
Tom Clancy's Without Remorse asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thunder 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 William Bang
Start here. Bang is the clearest statement of what Jack Kesy does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 6.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jack 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.
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Keeps the action register of Bang but asks for a colder reading of it.
Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)
Same director as Deadpool 2, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Outpost (2020)
Keeps the action register of Once Upon a Deadpool but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021)
Keeps the war register of The Outpost but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Leitch
Director
2 films together
Notably Deadpool 2
Seth Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Baywatch
Eli Roth
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Wish
Rod Lurie
Director
1 film together
Notably The Outpost
Alan Ritchson
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Web: Cicada 3301
Stefano Sollima
Director
1 film together
Notably Tom Clancy's Without Remorse
David Fincher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Killer
Tony Schiena
Director
1 film together
Notably The Weapon
Brian Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Tim Story
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pickup
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Leitch
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Deadpool 2Stefano Sollima
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tom Clancy's Without RemorseRod Lurie
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The OutpostDavid Fincher
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The KillerTim Story
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 PickupEli Roth
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death WishSeth Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BaywatchAlan Ritchson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark Web: Cicada 3301Brian Taylor
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hellboy: The Crooked ManTony Schiena
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WeaponSix 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 2
as Black Tom
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 Outpost
as Sgt. Josh Kirk
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 2
as Black Tom
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Killer
as Salesman
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Bang
as William Bang
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. Jack Kesy 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
14 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
Deadpool 2
as Black Tom
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Killer
as Salesman
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
12 Strong
as Charles Jones
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Killer
as Salesman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Deadpool 2
as Black Tom
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Deadpool 2
as Black Tom
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
12 Strong
as Charles Jones
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hellboy: The Crooked Man
as Hellboy
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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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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