Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12617
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ken Foree represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 48 years in, and Ken is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ken Foree appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ken. Dawn of the Dead is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, comedy, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with William Butler, Francis Lawrence, Zack Snyder and others, Ken Foree 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.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) as Peter Washington · Dawn of the Dead (2004) as The Televangelist · Water for Elephants (2011) as Earl
Career snapshot
Ranked #12617 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1978–2026
Career length
48 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Dawn of the Dead
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Dawn of the Dead
Most frequent director
William Butler
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With William Butler
Most common genre
Horror
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 31m
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
6.6
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
1970s
7.4 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Dawn of the Dead — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Dawn of the Dead.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | — | 6.91 film | 5.81 film |
| Action | — | 6.31 film | 7.11 film | — | 0.01 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — | — | 2.92 films |
| Comedy | — | — | — | — | 0.01 film |
| Romance | — | — | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | 7.41 film | 5.91 film | 7.11 film | 6.51 film | 6.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1978Dawn of the Dead
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Peter Washington. 7.4 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 Teddy.
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 Peter Washington
Directed by George A. Romero
as The Televangelist
Directed by Zack Snyder
as Teddy
Directed by William Butler
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
Peter Washington
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Peter Washington gives Ken Foree a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
The Televangelist
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Performance score7.0
Dawn of the Dead asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Televangelist is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Earl
Water for Elephants (2011)
Performance score6.8
Water for Elephants asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Earl is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Teddy
Special Op: Rent-a-Cop (2026)
Performance score6.5
Special Op: Rent-a-Cop asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Teddy 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 Peter Washington
Start here. Dawn of the Dead is the clearest statement of what Ken Foree does — accessible, 127 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ken 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.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Keeps the science fiction register of Dawn of the Dead but asks for a colder reading of it.
Water for Elephants (2011)
A deliberate change of key after Dawn of the Dead — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Water for Elephants — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Special Op: Rent-a-Cop (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
George A. Romero
Director
1 film together
Notably Dawn of the Dead
Vic Armstrong
Director
1 film together
Notably Joshua Tree
Brian Yuzna
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dentist
Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together
Notably Dawn of the Dead
Francis Lawrence
Director
1 film together
Notably Water for Elephants
William Butler
Director
1 film together
Notably Special Op: Rent-a-Cop
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George A. Romero
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dawn of the DeadZack Snyder
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dawn of the DeadFrancis Lawrence
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Water for ElephantsVic Armstrong
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joshua TreeBrian Yuzna
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DentistWilliam Butler
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Special Op: Rent-a-CopSix 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
Dawn of the Dead
as Peter Washington
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Water for Elephants
as Earl
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dawn of the Dead
as Peter Washington
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dawn of the Dead
as Peter Washington
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. Ken Foree 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
48 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in horror, 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
Dawn of the Dead
as Peter Washington
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dawn of the Dead
as The Televangelist
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Water for Elephants
as Earl
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Dentist
as Detective Gibbs
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dawn of the Dead
as The Televangelist
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dawn of the Dead
as The Televangelist
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Water for Elephants
as Earl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
John Henry
as BJ Henry
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: drama and thriller
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and drama
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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