Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12094
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jay Ellis works on quiet performance 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.
Jay Ellis appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jay. Top Gun: Maverick 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 quiet performance, screen presence, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Will Gluck, Ryan Fleck, Yassir Lester and others, Jay Ellis 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.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch · One Night Only (2026) as Bernard Starks · Freaky Tales (2025) as Sleepy Floyd
Career snapshot
Ranked #12094 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2022–2026
Career length
4 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
Top Gun: Maverick
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Top Gun: Maverick
Most frequent director
Will Gluck
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Will Gluck
Most common genre
Comedy
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. One Night Only, Freaky Tales, The Gutter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.5
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2020s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. One Night Only, Freaky Tales, The Gutter.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|
| Drama | 7.12 films |
| Action | 7.32 films |
| Comedy | 6.04 films |
| Crime | 6.31 film |
| Romance | 6.42 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch. 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
2026One Night Only
The current state of the argument, as Bernard Starks.
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 Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
as Bernard Starks
Directed by Will Gluck
as Sleepy Floyd
Directed by Ryan Fleck
as Lil Patience
Directed by Yassir Lester
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
Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch gives Jay Ellis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bernard Starks
One Night Only (2026)
Performance score7.0
One Night Only asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bernard Starks is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sleepy Floyd
Freaky Tales (2025)
Performance score7.0
Freaky Tales asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sleepy Floyd is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lil Patience
The Gutter (2024)
Performance score6.5
The Gutter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lil Patience 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 Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
Start here. Top Gun: Maverick is the clearest statement of what Jay Ellis does — accessible, 131 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jay 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.
Somebody I Used to Know (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Top Gun: Maverick but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Gutter (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Somebody I Used to Know but asks for a colder reading of it.
Freaky Tales (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of The Gutter but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Night Only (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Freaky Tales but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together
Notably Top Gun: Maverick
Dave Franco
Director
1 film together
Notably Somebody I Used to Know
Yassir Lester
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gutter
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Freaky Tales
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably One Night Only
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Top Gun: MaverickWill Gluck
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Night OnlyRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freaky TalesDave Franco
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Somebody I Used to KnowYassir Lester
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GutterSix 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
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Somebody I Used to Know
as Sean
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
One Night Only
as Bernard Starks
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
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. Jay Ellis 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
4 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
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Somebody I Used to Know
as Sean
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Somebody I Used to Know
as Sean
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Top Gun: Maverick
as Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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