Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20324
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
James Pizzinato 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 Pizzinato appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without James. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, tv movie, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Aubrey Arnason, Matt Reeves, Gareth Edwards and others, James Pizzinato 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.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) as Lab Tech · War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) as Captured Soldier · Family Pictures (2019) as Quinn
Career snapshot
Ranked #20324 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2010–2021
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Most frequent director
Aubrey Arnason
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Aubrey Arnason
Most common genre
Drama
4 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
6.3
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
2020s
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. A Love to Remember — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
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. Family Pictures, War for the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 | 6.94 films | — |
| Action | 6.92 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | — |
| Romance | 6.21 film | 6.61 film |
| Horror | 5.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
201030 Days of Night: Dark Days
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Clyde.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2011Rise of the Planet of the Apes
7.4 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, as Jared Carr.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Lab Tech
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
as Captured Soldier
Directed by Matt Reeves
as Jared Carr
Directed by Aubrey Arnason
as Quinn
Directed by Unknown
as HALO Jumper
Directed by Gareth Edwards
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
Lab Tech
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lab Tech gives James Pizzinato a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Captured Soldier
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Performance score7.1
War for the Planet of the Apes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captured Soldier is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jared Carr
A Love to Remember (2021)
Performance score6.8
A Love to Remember asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jared Carr is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Quinn
Family Pictures (2019)
Performance score6.6
Family Pictures asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Quinn 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 Lab Tech
Start here. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the clearest statement of what James Pizzinato does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.4 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.
Godzilla (2014)
Keeps the action register of Rise of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Keeps the science fiction register of Godzilla but asks for a colder reading of it.
Family Pictures (2019)
Keeps the drama register of War for the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Love to Remember (2021)
Keeps the tv movie register of Family Pictures but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ben Ketai
Director
1 film together
Notably 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together
Notably Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Bill Condon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Godzilla
Matt Reeves
Director
1 film together
Notably War for the Planet of the Apes
Aubrey Arnason
Director
1 film together
Notably A Love to Remember
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rise of the Planet of the ApesMatt Reeves
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
War for the Planet of the ApesAubrey Arnason
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Love to RememberGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GodzillaBill Condon
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1Ben Ketai
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
30 Days of Night: Dark DaysSix 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
War for the Planet of the Apes
as Captured Soldier
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 Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
as Unsavory Man
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
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 Pizzinato 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.
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
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
as Unsavory Man
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
as Unsavory Man
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Godzilla
as HALO Jumper
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
War for the Planet of the Apes
as Captured Soldier
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Lab Tech
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
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Reference
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