Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20517
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
James Hampton 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.
James Hampton appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without James. Pump Up the Volume is the clearest case: a film rated 6.8 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 music, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Allan Moyle, Christopher Leitch, Rod Daniel and others, James Hampton 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.
Pump Up the Volume (1990) as Arthur Watts · Soldier Blue (1970) as Pvt. Menzies · Teen Wolf (1985) as Harold Howard
Career snapshot
Ranked #20517 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1970–1990
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.8
Pump Up the Volume
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Pump Up the Volume
Most frequent director
Allan Moyle
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Allan Moyle
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.3
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
1990s
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Pump Up the Volume — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.1
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. The Cat from Outer Space, Soldier Blue.
Most productive era
1970s
2 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 | 1980s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | 5.32 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1970Soldier Blue
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Pvt. Menzies.
Career peak
1985Teen Wolf
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
6.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Arthur Watts.
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 Harold Howard
Directed by Rod Daniel
as Pvt. Menzies
Directed by Ralph Nelson
as Uncle Harold
Directed by Christopher Leitch
as Capt. Anderson
Directed by Norman Tokar
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
Harold Howard
Teen Wolf (1985)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Harold Howard gives James Hampton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Arthur Watts
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Performance score6.7
Pump Up the Volume asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arthur Watts is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Pvt. Menzies
Soldier Blue (1970)
Performance score6.6
Soldier Blue asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pvt. Menzies is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Uncle Harold
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
Performance score6.5
Teen Wolf Too asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Uncle Harold 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 Harold Howard
Start here. Teen Wolf is the clearest statement of what James Hampton does — accessible, 92 minutes, and rated 6.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet James 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.
Soldier Blue (1970)
A deliberate change of key after Teen Wolf — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
A deliberate change of key after Soldier Blue — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
Keeps the comedy register of The Cat from Outer Space but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
A deliberate change of key after Teen Wolf Too — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ralph Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably Soldier Blue
Norman Tokar
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cat from Outer Space
Rod Daniel
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Wolf
Christopher Leitch
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Wolf Too
Allan Moyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Pump Up the Volume
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Allan Moyle
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pump Up the VolumeRalph Nelson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Soldier BlueRod Daniel
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen WolfNorman Tokar
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Cat from Outer SpaceChristopher Leitch
Director
1 film together · 4.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Wolf TooSix 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
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Teen Wolf
as Harold Howard
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. James Hampton 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
20 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Teen Wolf Too
as Uncle Harold
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Soldier Blue
as Pvt. Menzies
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Soldier Blue
as Pvt. Menzies
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Pump Up the Volume
as Arthur Watts
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Cat from Outer Space
as Capt. Anderson
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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