Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6703
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Larenz Tate represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Larenz is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Larenz Tate appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Larenz. Michael is the clearest case: a film rated 8.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are drama, versatility, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for music, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Antoine Fuqua, Paul Haggis, F. Gary Gray and others, Larenz Tate 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.
Michael (2026) as Berry Gordy · Crash (2005) as Peter · Dead Presidents (1995) as Anthony Curtis
Career snapshot
Ranked #6703 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1995–2026
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.7
Michael
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
Michael
Most frequent director
Antoine Fuqua
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Antoine Fuqua
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 6m
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
6.9
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
8.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Michael — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
8.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
8.7
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 Postman, Dead Presidents.
Most productive era
2000s
3 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 | 6.61 film | 6.63 films | 8.71 film |
| Action | 6.52 films | 6.32 films | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1995Dead Presidents
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Anthony Curtis.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Michael
8.7 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. The current state of the argument, as Berry Gordy.
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 Berry Gordy
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
as Anthony Curtis
Directed by Albert Hughes
as Ford
Directed by Kevin Costner
as Demetrius Hicks
Directed by F. Gary Gray
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
Berry Gordy
Michael (2026)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Berry Gordy gives Larenz Tate a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Anthony Curtis
Dead Presidents (1995)
Performance score7.3
Dead Presidents asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anthony Curtis is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Peter
Crash (2005)
Performance score7.1
Crash asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ford
The Postman (1997)
Performance score6.9
The Postman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ford 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 Berry Gordy
Start here. Michael is the clearest statement of what Larenz Tate does — accessible, 128 minutes, and rated 8.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Larenz 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.
Dead Presidents (1995)
Keeps the drama register of Michael but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Postman (1997)
Keeps the action register of Dead Presidents but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Man Apart (2003)
Keeps the action register of The Postman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Crash (2005)
Keeps the drama register of A Man Apart but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Albert Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead Presidents
Kevin Costner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Postman
Reggie Rock Bythewood
Director
1 film together
Notably Biker Boyz
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably A Man Apart
Paul Haggis
Director
1 film together
Notably Crash
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably Michael
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 8.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MichaelPaul Haggis
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CrashAlbert Hughes
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead PresidentsReggie Rock Bythewood
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Biker BoyzKevin Costner
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 PostmanF. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Man ApartSix 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
Michael
as Berry Gordy
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Michael
as Berry Gordy
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Michael
as Berry Gordy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Michael
as Berry Gordy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Michael
as Berry Gordy
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. Larenz Tate 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
31 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Michael
as Berry Gordy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Michael
as Berry Gordy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Michael
as Berry Gordy
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Man Apart
as Demetrius Hicks
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Michael
as Berry Gordy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Postman
as Ford
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Michael
as Berry Gordy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Man Apart
as Demetrius Hicks
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and action
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Harvey Keitel
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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