Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#84160
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Kevin Yamada 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.
Kevin Yamada appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kevin. Press Play is the clearest case: a film rated 6.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, screen presence, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, romance, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jordan Weiss, Clay Tarver, Tyler Spindel and others, Kevin Yamada 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.
Press Play (2022) as Partner · Vacation Friends 2 (2023) as Minjin · How to Be Single (2016) as Alice's Boss
Career snapshot
Ranked #84160 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2009–2024
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.5
Press Play
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.5
Press Play
Most frequent director
Jordan Weiss
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jordan Weiss
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. How to Be Single — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Old Dogs.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comedy | 5.61 film | 6.31 film | 6.13 films |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film | 6.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
2009Old Dogs
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Riku. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2022Press Play
6.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024Sweethearts
The current state of the argument, as Norman.
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 Partner
Directed by Unknown
as Resort Waiter
Directed by Tyler Spindel
as Alice's Boss
Directed by Christian Ditter
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
Norman
Sweethearts (2024)
Performance score6.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Norman gives Kevin Yamada a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Minjin
Vacation Friends 2 (2023)
Performance score6.5
Vacation Friends 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Minjin is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Partner
Press Play (2022)
Performance score6.5
Press Play asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Partner is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Resort Waiter
The Wrong Missy (2020)
Performance score6.5
The Wrong Missy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Resort Waiter 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 Norman
Start here. Sweethearts is the clearest statement of what Kevin Yamada does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 5.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kevin 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.
How to Be Single (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of Sweethearts but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Wrong Missy (2020)
Keeps the romance register of How to Be Single but asks for a colder reading of it.
Press Play (2022)
Keeps the romance register of The Wrong Missy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Vacation Friends 2 (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Press Play — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Christian Ditter
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Be Single
Tyler Spindel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wrong Missy
Clay Tarver
Director
1 film together
Notably Vacation Friends 2
Jordan Weiss
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweethearts
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Clay Tarver
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Vacation Friends 2Christian Ditter
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Be SingleTyler Spindel
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wrong MissyJordan Weiss
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SweetheartsSix 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
How to Be Single
as Alice's Boss
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Press Play
as Partner
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Press Play
as Partner
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Wrong Missy
as Resort Waiter
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sweethearts
as Norman
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. Kevin Yamada 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
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
Press Play
as Partner
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Press Play
as Partner
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Press Play
as Partner
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Press Play
as Partner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Press Play
as Partner
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Old Dogs
as Riku
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Press Play
as Partner
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
How to Be Single
as Alice's Boss
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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