Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2671
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Larry Miller represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Larry is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Larry Miller appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Larry. 10 Things I Hate About You is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 documentary, war, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Peter Segal, Garry Marshall, Simon J. Smith and others, Larry Miller 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.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999) as Walter Stratford · Pretty Woman (1990) as Mr. Hollister · Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) as Dabney Shaw
Career snapshot
Ranked #2671 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
1990–2021
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
10 Things I Hate About You
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
10 Things I Hate About You
Most frequent director
Garry Marshall
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Garry Marshall
Most common genre
Comedy
19 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.1
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. 10 Things I Hate About You, Waiting for Guffman, The Nutty Professor.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.22 films | 6.52 films | 5.72 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | 6.72 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.95 films | 6.310 films | 6.04 films | — |
| Crime | — | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.94 films | 6.52 films | 6.04 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Pretty Woman
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mr. Hollister.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
199910 Things I Hate About You
7.7 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.
Most recent film
2021More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
22 of 22 films
as Walter Stratford
Directed by Gil Junger
as Mr. Hollister
Directed by Garry Marshall
as Dabney Shaw
Directed by Shane Black
as Glenn Welsch - Mayor
Directed by Christopher Guest
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
Walter Stratford
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Walter Stratford gives Larry Miller a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mr. Hollister
Pretty Woman (1990)
Performance score7.4
Pretty Woman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Hollister is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dabney Shaw
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Performance score7.3
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dabney Shaw is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)
Performance score7.0
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Walter Stratford
Start here. 10 Things I Hate About You is the clearest statement of what Larry Miller does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Larry 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.
Pretty Woman (1990)
Keeps the romance register of 10 Things I Hate About You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Waiting for Guffman (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of Pretty Woman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Keeps the comedy register of Waiting for Guffman but asks for a colder reading of it.
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Garry Marshall
Director
6 films together
Notably Pretty Woman
Christopher Guest
Director
4 films together
Notably Best in Show
Peter Segal
Director
3 films together
Notably Second Act
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably L.A. Story
Nicholas Kazan
Director
1 film together
Notably Dream Lover
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably The Nutty Professor
Gil Junger
Director
1 film together
Notably 10 Things I Hate About You
Shane Black
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
John A. Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ant Bully
Simon J. Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Bee Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Garry Marshall
Director
6 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Pretty WomanChristopher Guest
Director
4 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Best in ShowPeter Segal
Director
3 films together · 5.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Second ActGil Junger
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
10 Things I Hate About YouShane Black
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss Kiss Bang BangNicholas Kazan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dream LoverMick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
L.A. StorySimon J. Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bee MovieJohn A. Davis
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ant BullyTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Nutty ProfessorSix 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
Pretty Woman
as Mr. Hollister
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
as Paolo
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
10 Things I Hate About You
as Walter Stratford
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mother's Day
as Motorcycle Cop
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
10 Things I Hate About You
as Walter Stratford
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. Larry Miller 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
19 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
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Dabney Shaw
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Dabney Shaw
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
as Paolo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Dabney Shaw
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
10 Things I Hate About You
as Walter Stratford
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Get Smart
as CIA Agent
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
as Paolo
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Nutty Professor
as Dean Richmond
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Larry Miller 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
