Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12960
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jacob Blair 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.
Jacob Blair appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jacob. The Way to You 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 romance, comedy, tv movie. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Norma Bailey, Timo Tjahjanto, Bobby Farrelly and others, Jacob Blair 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 Way to You (2026) as Aaron · Molly's Game (2017) as Jeremy Bloom · Midway (2019) as Hank Potter
Career snapshot
Ranked #12960 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2008–2026
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Way to You
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Way to You
Most frequent director
Roland Emmerich
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Roland Emmerich
Most common genre
Comedy
6 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
2020s
6.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Way to You, Nobody 2, Champions — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.7
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.7
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. 2012, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 5.71 film | 7.22 films | 6.42 films |
| Action | 6.11 film | 6.43 films | 6.91 film |
| Thriller | 5.71 film | 6.02 films | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.32 films | 6.84 films |
| Crime | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.41 film | 6.63 films |
| Horror | — | 5.82 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008The Day the Earth Stood Still
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Soldier #2.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026The Way to You
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. The current state of the argument, as Aaron.
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 Aaron
Directed by Norma Bailey
as Jeremy Bloom
Directed by Aaron Sorkin
as Hank Potter
Directed by Roland Emmerich
as Deputy Dann
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
as Blake Lassiter
Directed by Bobby Farrelly
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
Aaron
The Way to You (2026)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Aaron gives Jacob Blair a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jeremy Bloom
Molly's Game (2017)
Performance score7.1
Molly's Game asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jeremy Bloom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hank Potter
Midway (2019)
Performance score7.0
Midway asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hank Potter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Deputy Dann
Nobody 2 (2025)
Performance score6.8
Nobody 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Deputy Dann 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 Aaron
Start here. The Way to You is the clearest statement of what Jacob Blair does — accessible, 84 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jacob 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.
Molly's Game (2017)
A deliberate change of key after The Way to You — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Midway (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Molly's Game but asks for a colder reading of it.
Champions (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Midway but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nobody 2 (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of Champions but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joe Carnahan
Director
2 films together
Notably The Grey
Roland Emmerich
Director
2 films together
Notably Midway
Scott Derrickson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Day the Earth Stood Still
Steve Pink
Director
1 film together
Notably Hot Tub Time Machine
Björn Stein
Director
1 film together
Notably Underworld: Awakening
Aaron Sorkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Molly's Game
Amyn Kaderali
Director
1 film together
Notably Grounded for Christmas
Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Champions
Timo Tjahjanto
Director
1 film together
Notably Nobody 2
Norma Bailey
Director
1 film together
Notably The Way to You
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Roland Emmerich
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
MidwayJoe Carnahan
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The GreyNorma Bailey
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Way to YouAaron Sorkin
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Molly's GameTimo Tjahjanto
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nobody 2Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChampionsAmyn Kaderali
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grounded for ChristmasBjörn Stein
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Underworld: AwakeningSteve Pink
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot Tub Time MachineScott Derrickson
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 Day the Earth Stood StillSix 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
Molly's Game
as Jeremy Bloom
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
'Tis the Season to be Merry
as Dale Westfield
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 Way to You
as Aaron
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
2012
as AF1 Steward
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Way to You
as Aaron
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. Jacob Blair 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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
The Way to You
as Aaron
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Nobody 2
as Deputy Dann
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
'Tis the Season to be Merry
as Dale Westfield
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Wrecked
as Park Ranger
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Grey
as Simon Cimoski
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Grey
as Simon Cimoski
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
'Tis the Season to be Merry
as Dale Westfield
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
2012
as AF1 Steward
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Jacob Blair 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
