Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8158
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ken Magee works on quiet performance 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.
Ken Magee appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ken. The Shawshank Redemption is the clearest case: a film rated 9.1 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 comedy, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michel Gondry, Frank Darabont, Alan Parker and others, Ken Magee 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.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) as Ned Grimes · Mississippi Burning (1988) as Agent Reilly · The Majestic (2001) as Coastal Engineer
Career snapshot
Ranked #8158 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1979–2001
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.1
The Shawshank Redemption
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
The Shawshank Redemption
Most frequent director
Frank Darabont
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Frank Darabont
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
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
6.8
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
1990s
9.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Shawshank Redemption — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
9.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
8.7
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. The Jerk.
Most productive era
1980s
2 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.51 film | 9.11 film | 6.42 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 6.01 film | — | 6.01 film |
| Crime | — | 7.51 film | 9.11 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.01 film | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1979The Jerk
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Carnival Rube.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.1 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
2001The Majestic
The current state of the argument, as Coastal Engineer.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Ned Grimes
Directed by Frank Darabont
as Agent Reilly
Directed by Alan Parker
as Coastal Engineer
Directed by Frank Darabont
as Carnival Rube
Directed by Carl Reiner
as Police Detective
Directed by Michel Gondry
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Ned Grimes
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Performance score8.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ned Grimes gives Ken Magee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Agent Reilly
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Performance score7.3
Mississippi Burning asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Agent Reilly is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Coastal Engineer
The Majestic (2001)
Performance score6.7
The Majestic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Coastal Engineer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Carnival Rube
The Jerk (1979)
Performance score6.7
The Jerk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carnival Rube 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 Ned Grimes
Start here. The Shawshank Redemption is the clearest statement of what Ken Magee does — accessible, 142 minutes, and rated 9.1 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.
The Jerk (1979)
A deliberate change of key after The Shawshank Redemption — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mississippi Burning (1988)
A deliberate change of key after The Jerk — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Majestic (2001)
Keeps the drama register of Mississippi Burning but asks for a colder reading of it.
Human Nature (2001)
Keeps the drama register of The Majestic but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Frank Darabont
Director
2 films together
Notably The Shawshank Redemption
Carl Reiner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Jerk
W.D. Richter
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Alan Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably Mississippi Burning
Michel Gondry
Director
1 film together
Notably Human Nature
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Frank Darabont
Director
2 films together · 7.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Shawshank RedemptionAlan Parker
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mississippi BurningCarl Reiner
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The JerkMichel Gondry
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Human NatureW.D. Richter
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th DimensionSix 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
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
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 Majestic
as Coastal Engineer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mississippi Burning
as Agent Reilly
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
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 Magee 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
22 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in drama, 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
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Majestic
as Coastal Engineer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mississippi Burning
as Agent Reilly
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
as Duck Hunter Burt
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Shawshank Redemption
as Ned Grimes
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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