Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3707
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Josh Lawson 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.
Josh Lawson appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Josh. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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, tv movie, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ed Kavalee, Simon McQuoid, Jonathan A. Rosenbaum and others, Josh Lawson 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.
Mortal Kombat II (2026) as Kano · Mortal Kombat (2021) as Kano · True Spirit (2023) as Roger Watson
Career snapshot
Ranked #3707 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Most frequent director
Simon McQuoid
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Simon McQuoid
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
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
2010s
6.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Bombshell, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Free Birds — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.1
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Bombshell, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, Free Birds.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 6.32 films |
| Action | — | 7.52 films |
| Comedy | 5.93 films | 4.74 films |
| Crime | — | 5.51 film |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012The Campaign
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tripp.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Mortal Kombat II
7.9 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. The current state of the argument, as Kano.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Kano
Directed by Simon McQuoid
as Kano
Directed by Simon McQuoid
as Roger Watson
Directed by Unknown
as Patrick
Directed by Josh Lawson
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
Kano
Mortal Kombat II (2026)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kano gives Josh Lawson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Kano
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Performance score7.2
Mortal Kombat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kano is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Roger Watson
True Spirit (2023)
Performance score7.1
True Spirit asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roger Watson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Patrick
Long Story Short (2021)
Performance score6.9
Long Story Short asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patrick 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 Kano
Start here. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest statement of what Josh Lawson does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Josh 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.
Bombshell (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Mortal Kombat II — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mortal Kombat (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Bombshell — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Long Story Short (2021)
Keeps the fantasy register of Mortal Kombat but asks for a colder reading of it.
True Spirit (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Long Story Short — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Roach
Director
2 films together
Notably Bombshell
Simon McQuoid
Director
2 films together
Notably Mortal Kombat II
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
Josh Lawson
Director
1 film together
Notably Long Story Short
Jonathan A. Rosenbaum
Director
1 film together
Notably Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp
Ed Kavalee
Director
1 film together
Notably Cop This
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Simon McQuoid
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat IIJay Roach
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
BombshellJosh Lawson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Long Story ShortJonathan A. Rosenbaum
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Woody Woodpecker Goes to CampAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Anchorman 2: The Legend ContinuesEd Kavalee
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cop ThisSix 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
True Spirit
as Roger Watson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bombshell
as James Murdoch
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
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. Josh Lawson 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
7 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
True Spirit
as Roger Watson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Blaze
as Jake
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mortal Kombat II
as Kano
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
True Spirit
as Roger Watson
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mortal Kombat
as Kano
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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