Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#216797
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Laird Cregar 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.
Laird Cregar appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Laird. Heaven Can Wait is the clearest case: a film rated 6.7 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 mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with John Brahm, Ernst Lubitsch, Henry King and others, Laird Cregar 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.
Heaven Can Wait (1943) as His Excellency · This Gun for Hire (1942) as Willard Gates · The Lodger (1944) as Mr. Slade
Career snapshot
Ranked #216797 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1942–1944
Career length
2 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.7
Heaven Can Wait
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
This Gun for Hire
Most frequent director
John Brahm
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With John Brahm
Most common genre
Mystery
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 31m
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
1940s
6.5 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. The Lodger, Heaven Can Wait, The Black Swan — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
6.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Lodger, Heaven Can Wait, The Black Swan.
Most productive era
1940s
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 | 1940s |
|---|---|
| Drama | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film |
| Crime | 6.71 film |
| Romance | 6.62 films |
| Horror | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
1942The Black Swan
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Captain Henry Morgan. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
6.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
1944The Lodger
The current state of the argument, as Mr. Slade.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Mr. Slade
Directed by John Brahm
as His Excellency
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
as Captain Henry Morgan
Directed by Henry King
as Willard Gates
Directed by Frank Tuttle
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
Mr. Slade
The Lodger (1944)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mr. Slade gives Laird Cregar a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
His Excellency
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Performance score6.9
Heaven Can Wait asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. His Excellency is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Captain Henry Morgan
The Black Swan (1942)
Performance score6.9
The Black Swan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Henry Morgan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Willard Gates
This Gun for Hire (1942)
Performance score6.9
This Gun for Hire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Willard Gates 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 Mr. Slade
Start here. The Lodger is the clearest statement of what Laird Cregar does — accessible, 84 minutes, and rated 6.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Laird 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 Black Swan (1942)
A deliberate change of key after The Lodger — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
This Gun for Hire (1942)
A deliberate change of key after The Black Swan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
A deliberate change of key after This Gun for Hire — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ernst Lubitsch
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heaven Can WaitFrank Tuttle
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Gun for HireJohn Brahm
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 LodgerHenry King
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 Black SwanSix 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
Heaven Can Wait
as His Excellency
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Heaven Can Wait
as His Excellency
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
This Gun for Hire
as Willard Gates
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Heaven Can Wait
as His Excellency
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Lodger
as Mr. Slade
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. Laird Cregar 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.
Mystery Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in mystery, 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
This Gun for Hire
as Willard Gates
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
This Gun for Hire
as Willard Gates
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Heaven Can Wait
as His Excellency
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
This Gun for Hire
as Willard Gates
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Black Swan
as Captain Henry Morgan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Black Swan
as Captain Henry Morgan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Heaven Can Wait
as His Excellency
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Black Swan
as Captain Henry Morgan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Laird Cregar performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
