Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#64664
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Jeff Clarke 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.
Jeff Clarke appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jeff. Giant Little Ones is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, tv movie, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alexander Payne, Rob Marshall, Jeff Clarke 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.
Giant Little Ones (2019) as Coach Klassen · Girl in the Bunker (2018) as Officer Samuels · Chicago (2002) as Court Clerk
Career snapshot
Ranked #64664 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2002–2019
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Giant Little Ones
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Girl in the Bunker
Most frequent director
Alexander Payne
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alexander Payne
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
6.5
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
7.1 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Chicago — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Chicago.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.11 film | 6.53 films |
| Comedy | 7.11 film | 5.41 film |
| Crime | 7.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
2002Chicago
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Court Clerk. 7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
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 Coach Klassen.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Court Clerk
Directed by Rob Marshall
as Divorce Lawyer
Directed by Alexander Payne
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
Officer Samuels
Girl in the Bunker (2018)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Officer Samuels gives Jeff Clarke a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Coach Klassen
Giant Little Ones (2019)
Performance score7.0
Giant Little Ones asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Coach Klassen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Court Clerk
Chicago (2002)
Performance score7.0
Chicago asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Court Clerk is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Divorce Lawyer
Downsizing (2017)
Performance score6.5
Downsizing asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Divorce Lawyer 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 Officer Samuels
Start here. Girl in the Bunker is the clearest statement of what Jeff Clarke does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jeff 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.
Chicago (2002)
Keeps the drama register of Girl in the Bunker but asks for a colder reading of it.
Downsizing (2017)
Keeps the comedy register of Chicago but asks for a colder reading of it.
Giant Little Ones (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Downsizing but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rob Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChicagoAlexander Payne
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DownsizingSix 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
Chicago
as Court Clerk
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Giant Little Ones
as Coach Klassen
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Chicago
as Court Clerk
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Chicago
as Court Clerk
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Girl in the Bunker
as Officer Samuels
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. Jeff Clarke 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
Giant Little Ones
as Coach Klassen
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Chicago
as Court Clerk
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Giant Little Ones
as Coach Klassen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Chicago
as Court Clerk
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Girl in the Bunker
as Officer Samuels
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Girl in the Bunker
as Officer Samuels
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Chicago
as Court Clerk
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Giant Little Ones
as Coach Klassen
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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