Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15125
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Kyle Gass represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Kyle is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kyle Gass appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kyle. Kung Fu Panda is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 comedy, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Bobby Farrelly, Harold Ramis, Mark Osborne and others, Kyle Gass 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.
Kung Fu Panda (2008) as KG Shaw (voice) · Jacob's Ladder (1990) as Tony · Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006) as KG
Career snapshot
Ranked #15125 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1990–2024
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Kung Fu Panda
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Jacob's Ladder
Most frequent director
Bobby Farrelly
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Bobby Farrelly
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.5
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
2020s
6.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Dear Santa — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.2
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. The Cable Guy, Bio-Dome, Jacob's Ladder.
Most productive era
2000s
10 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.62 films | 6.21 film | — |
| Action | — | 6.53 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 5.32 films | 6.110 films | 6.21 film |
| Crime | — | 5.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.13 films | — |
| Horror | 7.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Jacob's Ladder
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tony.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008Kung Fu Panda
7.5 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
2024Dear Santa
The current state of the argument, as Science Teacher.
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.
14 of 14 films
as KG Shaw (voice)
Directed by Mark Osborne
as KG
Directed by Unknown
as Tony
Directed by Adrian Lyne
as Eugene
Directed by Jon Favreau
as Science Teacher
Directed by Bobby Farrelly
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
KG Shaw (voice)
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. KG Shaw (voice) gives Kyle Gass a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
KG
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)
Performance score7.2
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. KG is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tony
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Performance score7.1
Jacob's Ladder asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tony is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Eugene
Elf (2003)
Performance score6.6
Elf asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eugene 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 KG Shaw (voice)
Start here. Kung Fu Panda is the clearest statement of what Kyle Gass does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kyle 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.
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
A deliberate change of key after Kung Fu Panda — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Elf (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Jacob's Ladder — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)
Keeps the comedy register of Elf but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dear Santa (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
2 films together
Notably Dear Santa
Adrian Lyne
Director
1 film together
Notably Jacob's Ladder
Jason Bloom
Director
1 film together
Notably Bio-Dome
Ben Stiller
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cable Guy
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Evolution
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably Saving Silverman
Jon Favreau
Director
1 film together
Notably Elf
Mark Osborne
Director
1 film together
Notably Kung Fu Panda
Harold Ramis
Director
1 film together
Notably Year One
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Dear SantaMark Osborne
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kung Fu PandaAdrian Lyne
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jacob's LadderJon Favreau
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ElfIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EvolutionBen Stiller
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 Cable GuyDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saving SilvermanHarold Ramis
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Year OneJason Bloom
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bio-DomeSix 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
Jacob's Ladder
as Tony
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Shallow Hal
as Artie
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Kung Fu Panda
as KG Shaw (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Cable Guy
as Couch Potato
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kung Fu Panda
as KG Shaw (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. Kyle Gass 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
34 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
13 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
Jacob's Ladder
as Tony
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Jacob's Ladder
as Tony
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Shallow Hal
as Artie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Jacob's Ladder
as Tony
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kung Fu Panda
as KG Shaw (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Wild Hogs
as Kyle
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shallow Hal
as Artie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Kung Fu Panda
as KG Shaw (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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