Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14011
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jernard Burks represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Jernard is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jernard Burks appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jernard. Léon: The Professional is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 comedy, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Craig Brewer, Todd Phillips, David Ayer and others, Jernard Burks 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.
Léon: The Professional (1994) as Stansfield man · The Hangover (2009) as Leonard · Dolemite Is My Name (2019) as Club Owner
Career snapshot
Ranked #14011 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1994–2019
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Léon: The Professional
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Léon: The Professional
Most frequent director
Todd Phillips
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Todd Phillips
Most common genre
Crime
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
2010s
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Dolemite Is My Name — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Snake Eyes, The Preacher's Wife, Devil in a Blue Dress.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.93 films | 6.71 film | 7.01 film |
| Action | 8.51 film | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.32 films | 6.71 film | — |
| Comedy | 5.81 film | 6.33 films | 7.01 film |
| Crime | 7.13 films | 6.43 films | — |
| Romance | 5.81 film | 5.61 film | — |
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 Stansfield man. 8.5 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 Club Owner.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Stansfield man
Directed by Luc Besson
as Leonard
Directed by Todd Phillips
as Club Owner
Directed by Craig Brewer
as Evan
Directed by John Singleton
as Money Shirt
Directed by David Ayer
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
Stansfield man
Léon: The Professional (1994)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Stansfield man gives Jernard Burks a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leonard
The Hangover (2009)
Performance score7.4
The Hangover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leonard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Club Owner
Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
Performance score6.9
Dolemite Is My Name asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Club Owner is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Evan
Four Brothers (2005)
Performance score6.7
Four Brothers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Evan 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 Stansfield man
Start here. Léon: The Professional is the clearest statement of what Jernard Burks does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jernard 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.
Four Brothers (2005)
Keeps the action register of Léon: The Professional but asks for a colder reading of it.
Street Kings (2008)
Keeps the action register of Four Brothers but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Hangover (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Street Kings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of The Hangover but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together
Notably The Hangover
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Léon: The Professional
Carl Franklin
Director
1 film together
Notably Devil in a Blue Dress
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably The Preacher's Wife
Brian De Palma
Director
1 film together
Notably Snake Eyes
Chris Weitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Down to Earth
John Singleton
Director
1 film together
Notably Four Brothers
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Street Kings
Craig Brewer
Director
1 film together
Notably Dolemite Is My Name
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The HangoverLuc Besson
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Léon: The ProfessionalCraig Brewer
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dolemite Is My NameJohn Singleton
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Four BrothersDavid Ayer
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Street KingsCarl Franklin
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Devil in a Blue DressBrian De Palma
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Snake EyesPenny Marshall
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Preacher's WifeChris Weitz
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Down to EarthSix 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
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
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 Preacher's Wife
as Pizza 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
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Street Kings
as Money Shirt
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
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. Jernard Burks 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
25 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Preacher's Wife
as Pizza Man
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Snake Eyes
as Tyler's Bodyguard
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Léon: The Professional
as Stansfield man
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Preacher's Wife
as Pizza Man
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Hangover
as Leonard
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
Which Jernard Burks performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
