Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1123
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Khary Payton 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.
Khary Payton appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Khary. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, science fiction, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Chris Renaud, Kyle Marshall, Aaron Horvath and others, Khary Payton 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 Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) as Penguin King (voice) · Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans (2019) as Cyborg (voice) · The Walking Dead: The Return (2024) as King Ezekiel Sutton (archive footage)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1123 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2004–2024
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Most frequent director
Aaron Horvath
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Aaron Horvath
Most common genre
Animation
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 21m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.5
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
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. Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, Hellraiser: Hellworld, Latter Days.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.91 film | 7.01 film | — |
| Action | 7.31 film | 7.24 films | 6.73 films |
| Thriller | 4.61 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.91 film | 7.32 films | 6.56 films |
| Romance | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Horror | 4.61 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Latter Days
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Andrew.
Career peak
2019Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2023The Super Mario Bros. Movie
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024No Time to Spy: A Loud House Movie
The current state of the argument, as Harold (voice).
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.
17 of 17 films
as Cyborg (voice)
Directed by Jeff Mednikow
as Penguin King (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Cyborg (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Cyborg (voice)
Directed by Heather A. Maxwell
as King Ezekiel Sutton (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
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
Cyborg (voice)
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans (2019)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cyborg (voice) gives Khary Payton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Penguin King (voice)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Performance score7.6
The Super Mario Bros. Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Penguin King (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Cyborg (voice)
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)
Performance score7.6
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cyborg (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cyborg (voice)
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006)
Performance score7.6
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cyborg (voice) 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 Cyborg (voice)
Start here. Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans is the clearest statement of what Khary Payton does — accessible, 77 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Khary 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.
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006)
Keeps the action register of Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans but asks for a colder reading of it.
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (2018)
Keeps the action register of Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Same director as Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Walking Dead: The Return (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Super Mario Bros. Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Aaron Horvath
Director
2 films together
Notably The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Rick Bota
Director
1 film together
Notably Hellraiser: Hellworld
Heather A. Maxwell
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Anthony Silverston
Director
1 film together
Notably Khumba
Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Sam Liu
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Marielle Heller
Director
1 film together
Notably A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Jeff Mednikow
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
Kirk Wise
Director
1 film together
Notably Bobbleheads: The Movie
Peter Rida Michail
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam
Katie Rice
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse
Kyle Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably No Time to Spy: A Loud House Movie
Chris Renaud
Director
1 film together
Notably Despicable Me 4
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Aaron Horvath
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
The Super Mario Bros. MovieJeff Mednikow
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen TitansHeather A. Maxwell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans: Trouble in TokyoChris Renaud
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Despicable Me 4Kyle Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Time to Spy: A Loud House MovieSam Liu
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: Gods and MonstersMarielle Heller
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Beautiful Day in the NeighborhoodEthan Spaulding
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: Throne of AtlantisHowy Parkins
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lion Guard: Return of the RoarPeter Rida Michail
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! See Space JamAnthony Silverston
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
KhumbaKatie Rice
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the MultiverseKirk Wise
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bobbleheads: The MovieRick Bota
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hellraiser: HellworldSix 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 Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
as Arthur Mendez - Telegraph Clerk (uncredited)
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 Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
as Arthur Mendez - Telegraph Clerk (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
as Cyborg (voice)
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. Khary Payton 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
20 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in animation, 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 Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
as Cyborg (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
as Arthur Mendez - Telegraph Clerk (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
as Cyborg (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
No Time to Spy: A Loud House Movie
as Harold (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Penguin King (voice)
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
Community
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Reference
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