Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#21832
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jess Liaudin 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.
Jess Liaudin appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jess. Big Brother is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, horror, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jesse V. Johnson, Seth Gordon, F. Gary Gray and others, Jess Liaudin 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.
Big Brother (2018) as David Jones · The Wrestler (2008) as Wrestler · Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) as Tundra Warrior Fey
Career snapshot
Ranked #21832 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2008–2026
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Big Brother
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Big Brother
Most frequent director
Jesse V. Johnson
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jesse V. Johnson
Most common genre
Action
9 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
6.8
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
2000s
7.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Wrestler — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.5
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. The Wrestler.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.51 film | 6.33 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.73 films | 5.26 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.12 films | 4.94 films |
| Comedy | — | 5.92 films | 6.03 films |
| Crime | — | 4.31 film | 5.05 films |
| Romance | 7.51 film | 5.51 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008The Wrestler
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wrestler.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Big Brother
7.6 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
2026Above & Below
The current state of the argument.
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 David Jones
Directed by Kam Ka-wai
as Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
as Tundra Warrior Fey
Directed by Joachim Rønning
as Nilsson
Directed by Jamie Payne
as Hakim Charef
Directed by James Nunn
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
David Jones
Big Brother (2018)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. David Jones gives Jess Liaudin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Wrestler
The Wrestler (2008)
Performance score7.3
The Wrestler asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wrestler is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tundra Warrior Fey
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Performance score7.2
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tundra Warrior Fey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nilsson
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
Performance score6.6
Luther: The Fallen Sun asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nilsson 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 David Jones
Start here. Big Brother is the clearest statement of what Jess Liaudin does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jess 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.
The Wrestler (2008)
Keeps the drama register of Big Brother but asks for a colder reading of it.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Wrestler — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
One Shot (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent: Mistress of Evil — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
Keeps the crime register of One Shot but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
2 films together
Notably One Ranger
Darren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wrestler
Benjamin Rocher
Director
1 film together
Notably Antigang
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably Submergence
Kam Ka-wai
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Brother
Etan Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Holmes & Watson
Joachim Rønning
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Anna
James Nunn
Director
1 film together
Notably One Shot
Jamie Payne
Director
1 film together
Notably Luther: The Fallen Sun
Noémie Saglio
Director
1 film together
Notably Nice Girls
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably Lift
Seth Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Back in Action
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
2 films together · 3.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
One RangerKam Ka-wai
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big BrotherDarren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WrestlerJoachim Rønning
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maleficent: Mistress of EvilJames Nunn
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One ShotLuc Besson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnnaJamie Payne
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Luther: The Fallen SunSeth Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Back in ActionF. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LiftBenjamin Rocher
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AntigangWim Wenders
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SubmergenceNoémie Saglio
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nice GirlsEtan Cohen
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holmes & WatsonSix 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
Big Brother
as David Jones
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 Wrestler
as Wrestler
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Big Brother
as David Jones
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Wrestler
as Wrestler
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Big Brother
as David Jones
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. Jess Liaudin 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in action, 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
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
as Tundra Warrior Fey
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Big Brother
as David Jones
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Submergence
as Marcel
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Luther: The Fallen Sun
as Nilsson
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Big Brother
as David Jones
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Anna
as Olga's Technicien
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
One Shot
as Hakim Charef
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Antigang
as Waked
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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