Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16476
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jason Cavalier represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Jason is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jason Cavalier appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jason. The Aviator is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 action, thriller, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Damián Szifron, Podz and others, Jason Cavalier 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 Aviator (2004) as Cocoanut Grove Patron · Scream VI (2023) as Bodega Clerk (uncredited) · To Catch a Killer (2023) as Marquand
Career snapshot
Ranked #16476 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1995–2026
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Aviator
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Aviator
Most frequent director
Tarsem Singh
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Tarsem Singh
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. I'm Not There, The Aviator — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Screamers.
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | 6.04 films | 6.63 films |
| Action | — | — | 6.22 films | 0.01 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.12 films | 5.04 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.82 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.12 films | 6.74 films |
| Horror | 6.31 film | — | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1995Screamers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Leone.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2004The Aviator
7.2 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
2026Infiltrate
The current state of the argument, as Guy.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Cocoanut Grove Patron
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Bodega Clerk (uncredited)
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
as Marquand
Directed by Damián Szifron
as Mafia Soldat #3
Directed by Podz
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
Cocoanut Grove Patron
The Aviator (2004)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cocoanut Grove Patron gives Jason Cavalier a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bodega Clerk (uncredited)
Scream VI (2023)
Performance score6.8
Scream VI asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bodega Clerk (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marquand
To Catch a Killer (2023)
Performance score6.8
To Catch a Killer asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marquand is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mafia Soldat #3
Mafia Inc. (2020)
Performance score6.6
Mafia Inc. asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mafia Soldat #3 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 Cocoanut Grove Patron
Start here. The Aviator is the clearest statement of what Jason Cavalier does — accessible, 170 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jason 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.
Mafia Inc. (2020)
Keeps the drama register of The Aviator but asks for a colder reading of it.
Scream VI (2023)
Keeps the crime register of Mafia Inc. but asks for a colder reading of it.
To Catch a Killer (2023)
Keeps the crime register of Scream VI but asks for a colder reading of it.
Infiltrate (2026)
Keeps the thriller register of To Catch a Killer but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tarsem Singh
Director
2 films together
Notably Immortals
Christian Duguay
Director
1 film together
Notably Screamers
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Aviator
Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably I'm Not There
Walter Salles
Director
1 film together
Notably On the Road
Barry Sonnenfeld
Director
1 film together
Notably Nine Lives
Eli Roth
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Wish
Podz
Director
1 film together
Notably Mafia Inc.
Damián Szifron
Director
1 film together
Notably To Catch a Killer
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
Director
1 film together
Notably Scream VI
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tarsem Singh
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ImmortalsMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AviatorMatt Bettinelli-Olpin
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scream VIDamián Szifron
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
To Catch a KillerPodz
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mafia Inc.Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I'm Not ThereChristian Duguay
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ScreamersEli 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 WishBarry Sonnenfeld
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nine LivesWalter Salles
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
On the RoadSix 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
Scream VI
as Bodega Clerk (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
I'm Not There
as Roadie
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 Aviator
as Cocoanut Grove Patron
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I'm Not There
as Roadie
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Aviator
as Cocoanut Grove Patron
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. Jason Cavalier 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
31 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
9 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
The Aviator
as Cocoanut Grove Patron
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Scream VI
as Bodega Clerk (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
I'm Not There
as Roadie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
To Catch a Killer
as Marquand
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Aviator
as Cocoanut Grove Patron
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Death Wish
as Officer McCord
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
I'm Not There
as Roadie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Screamers
as Leone
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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Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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