Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1911
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ken Marino represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 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 Marino appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ken. Gattaca 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 romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Amy Landecker, David Wain, Reginald Hudlin and others, Ken Marino 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.
Gattaca (1997) as Sequencing Technician · Toy Story of Terror! (2013) as Pocketeer (voice) · We're the Millers (2013) as Todd - Strip Club Owner
Career snapshot
Ranked #1911 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
1997–2026
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Gattaca
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Gattaca
Most frequent director
David Wain
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With David Wain
Most common genre
Comedy
23 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
1990s
7.6 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Gattaca — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.6
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. Gattaca.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.61 film | — | 6.13 films | 4.81 film |
| Action | — | 5.81 film | 5.81 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 5.51 film |
| Comedy | — | 5.95 films | 6.211 films | 5.67 films |
| Crime | — | 6.02 films | 6.43 films | — |
| Romance | — | — | 5.83 films | 4.81 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.32 films | 5.62 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1997Gattaca
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sequencing Technician. 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
2026Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
The current state of the argument, as Vincent.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Sequencing Technician
Directed by Andrew Niccol
as Pocketeer (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Todd - Strip Club Owner
Directed by Unknown
as Frankie
Directed by Jay Karas
as Carven Wagi
Directed by Ken Marino
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
Sequencing Technician
Gattaca (1997)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Sequencing Technician gives Ken Marino a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Pocketeer (voice)
Toy Story of Terror! (2013)
Performance score7.1
Toy Story of Terror! asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pocketeer (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Todd - Strip Club Owner
We're the Millers (2013)
Performance score6.7
We're the Millers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Todd - Strip Club Owner is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Frankie
The Main Event (2020)
Performance score6.6
The Main Event asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frankie 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 Sequencing Technician
Start here. Gattaca is the clearest statement of what Ken Marino does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.6 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.
Toy Story of Terror! (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Gattaca — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
We're the Millers (2013)
Same director as Toy Story of Terror!, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Dog Days (2018)
Keeps the comedy register of We're the Millers but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Main Event (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Dog Days but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Wain
Director
6 films together
Notably Role Models
McG
Director
2 films together
Notably The Babysitter: Killer Queen
Andrew Niccol
Director
1 film together
Notably Gattaca
Robert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together
Notably Reno 911!: Miami
Brian Dannelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Struck by Lightning
Rob Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably Veronica Mars
Rob Letterman
Director
1 film together
Notably Goosebumps
Kevin Pollak
Director
1 film together
Notably The Late Bloomer
Jared Hess
Director
1 film together
Notably Masterminds
Ken Marino
Director
1 film together
Notably Dog Days
Jay Karas
Director
1 film together
Notably The Main Event
Sophie Kargman
Director
1 film together
Notably Susie Searches
Reginald Hudlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Candy Cane Lane
Amy Landecker
Director
1 film together
Notably For Worse
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Wain
Director
6 films together · 5.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Role ModelsMcG
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
The Babysitter: Killer QueenAndrew Niccol
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GattacaKen Marino
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dog DaysRob Thomas
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Veronica MarsJay Karas
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Main EventRob Letterman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GoosebumpsBrian Dannelly
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Struck by LightningReginald Hudlin
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Candy Cane LaneJared Hess
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MastermindsRobert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Reno 911!: MiamiSophie Kargman
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Susie SearchesKevin Pollak
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Late BloomerAmy Landecker
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For WorseSix 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
Gattaca
as Sequencing Technician
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 Late Bloomer
as Mr. Hanson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gattaca
as Sequencing Technician
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Veronica Mars
as Vinnie Van Lowe
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gattaca
as Sequencing Technician
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 Marino 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
29 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
23 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
Gattaca
as Sequencing Technician
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Hoodwinked!
as Raccoon Jerry (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Late Bloomer
as Mr. Hanson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hoodwinked!
as Raccoon Jerry (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gattaca
as Sequencing Technician
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Reno 911!: Miami
as Deaf Tattoo Artist
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Veronica Mars
as Vinnie Van Lowe
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Masterminds
as Doug
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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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