Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12970
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jake Hoffman represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Jake is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jake Hoffman appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jake. The Wolf of Wall Street is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Cindy Chupack, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese and others, Jake Hoffman 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 Wolf of Wall Street (2013) as Steve Madden · Rain Man (1988) as Boy at Pancake Counter · Barney's Version (2010) as Michael Panofsky
Career snapshot
Ranked #12970 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1988–2022
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
The Wolf of Wall Street
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Wolf of Wall Street
Most frequent director
Cindy Chupack
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Cindy Chupack
Most common genre
Comedy
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.7
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
7.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Rain Man — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.8
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. Rain Man.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.81 film | — | 6.52 films | 7.72 films | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.91 film | 6.43 films | 6.84 films | 5.82 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.41 film | 8.31 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 6.31 film | 5.91 film | 5.82 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1988Rain Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Boy at Pancake Counter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.3 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
2022Sam & Kate
The current state of the argument, as Sam.
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 Steve Madden
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Boy at Pancake Counter
Directed by Barry Levinson
as Sam
Directed by Unknown
as Michael Panofsky
Directed by Richard J. Lewis
as Little League Player
Directed by Steven Spielberg
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
Steve Madden
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Steve Madden gives Jake Hoffman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Boy at Pancake Counter
Rain Man (1988)
Performance score7.6
Rain Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Boy at Pancake Counter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sam
Sam & Kate (2022)
Performance score7.0
Sam & Kate asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sam is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Michael Panofsky
Barney's Version (2010)
Performance score6.9
Barney's Version asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Michael Panofsky 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 Steve Madden
Start here. The Wolf of Wall Street is the clearest statement of what Jake Hoffman does — accessible, 180 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jake 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.
Rain Man (1988)
Keeps the drama register of The Wolf of Wall Street but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hook (1991)
A deliberate change of key after Rain Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Barney's Version (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Hook but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sam & Kate (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Barney's Version but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Rain Man
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Hook
David O. Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably I ♥ Huckabees
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably Click
Richard J. Lewis
Director
1 film together
Notably Barney's Version
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wolf of Wall Street
Peter Bogdanovich
Director
1 film together
Notably She's Funny That Way
Cindy Chupack
Director
1 film together
Notably Otherhood
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wolf of Wall StreetBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rain ManRichard J. Lewis
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Barney's VersionSteven 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
HookFrank Coraci
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ClickDavid O. Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I ♥ HuckabeesCindy Chupack
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OtherhoodPeter Bogdanovich
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She's Funny That WaySix 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
Rain Man
as Boy at Pancake Counter
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sam & Kate
as Sam
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 Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I ♥ Huckabees
as Valet
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
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. Jake Hoffman 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
34 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
10 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 Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sam & Kate
as Sam
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hook
as Little League Player
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Hook
as Little League Player
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Steve Madden
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: family and comedy
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Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Mark Rolston
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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