Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10020
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jim Downey represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Jim is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jim Downey appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jim. There Will Be Blood is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for documentary, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Morgan Neville, Paul Thomas Anderson, Brent Hodge and others, Jim Downey 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.
There Will Be Blood (2007) as Al Rose · One Battle After Another (2025) as Sandy Irvine · Lorne (2026) as Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #10020 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1993–2026
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Most frequent director
Paul Thomas Anderson
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul Thomas Anderson
Most common genre
Comedy
5 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
6.4
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
8.1 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. There Will Be Blood — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
8.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
8.1
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. Dirty Work, Billy Madison, Wayne's World 2.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 8.11 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.23 films | — | 3.72 films |
| Crime | — | — | 7.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1993Wayne's World 2
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jeff Wong (voice, uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.1 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
2026Lorne
The current state of the argument, as Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice).
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.
7 of 7 films
as Sandy Irvine
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
as Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice)
Directed by Morgan Neville
as Martin / Homeless Guy
Directed by Bob Saget
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
Al Rose
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Al Rose gives Jim Downey a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sandy Irvine
One Battle After Another (2025)
Performance score7.2
One Battle After Another asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sandy Irvine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice)
Lorne (2026)
Performance score6.7
Lorne asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
Downey Wrote That (2025)
Performance score6.5
Downey Wrote That asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Al Rose
Start here. There Will Be Blood is the clearest statement of what Jim Downey does — accessible, 158 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jim 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.
Dirty Work (1998)
A deliberate change of key after There Will Be Blood — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
One Battle After Another (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of Dirty Work but asks for a colder reading of it.
Downey Wrote That (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of One Battle After Another but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lorne (2026)
Keeps the documentary register of Downey Wrote That but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
2 films together
Notably There Will Be Blood
Stephen Surjik
Director
1 film together
Notably Wayne's World 2
Tamra Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Billy Madison
Bob Saget
Director
1 film together
Notably Dirty Work
Brent Hodge
Director
1 film together
Notably Downey Wrote That
Morgan Neville
Director
1 film together
Notably Lorne
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
2 films together · 7.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
There Will Be BloodMorgan Neville
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LorneBob Saget
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dirty WorkTamra Davis
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Billy MadisonStephen Surjik
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wayne's World 2Brent Hodge
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Downey Wrote ThatSix 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
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Lorne
as Self / Irwin Segelstein (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
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. Jim Downey 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
33 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
5 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
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
One Battle After Another
as Sandy Irvine
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
One Battle After Another
as Sandy Irvine
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
One Battle After Another
as Sandy Irvine
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
There Will Be Blood
as Al Rose
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Wayne's World 2
as Jeff Wong (voice, uncredited)
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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Bonnie Hunt
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Cillian Murphy
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Morgan Freeman
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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