Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4549
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Larry Wilmore works on quiet performance 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.
Larry Wilmore appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Larry. Jerry & Marge Go Large is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Frankel, Amy Heckerling, Jay Roach and others, Larry Wilmore 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.
Jerry & Marge Go Large (2022) as Steve · I Love You, Man (2009) as Justice Of The Peace · The Laundromat (2019) as Jeff
Career snapshot
Ranked #4549 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2009–2022
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Jerry & Marge Go Large
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Jerry & Marge Go Large
Most frequent director
David Frankel
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Frankel
Most common genre
Comedy
6 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
6.2
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
2020s
7.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Jerry & Marge Go Large — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.4
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. I Love You, Man.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.01 film | 7.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 5.74 films | 7.41 film |
| Crime | — | 6.01 film | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 5.31 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009I Love You, Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Justice Of The Peace.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
7.4 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 Steve.
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 Justice Of The Peace
Directed by John Hamburg
as Jeff
Directed by Unknown
as Mr. Vernon
Directed by Unknown
as Professor Quincy
Directed by Amy Heckerling
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
Steve
Jerry & Marge Go Large (2022)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Steve gives Larry Wilmore a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Justice Of The Peace
I Love You, Man (2009)
Performance score6.6
I Love You, Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Justice Of The Peace is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jeff
The Laundromat (2019)
Performance score6.5
The Laundromat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jeff is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mr. Vernon
Date and Switch (2014)
Performance score6.5
Date and Switch asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Vernon 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 Steve
Start here. Jerry & Marge Go Large is the clearest statement of what Larry Wilmore does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.4 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.
I Love You, Man (2009)
Keeps the comedy register of Jerry & Marge Go Large but asks for a colder reading of it.
Vamps (2012)
Keeps the romance register of I Love You, Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Date and Switch (2014)
Keeps the comedy register of Vamps but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Laundromat (2019)
Same director as Date and Switch, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Hamburg
Director
1 film together
Notably I Love You, Man
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Dinner for Schmucks
Amy Heckerling
Director
1 film together
Notably Vamps
David Frankel
Director
1 film together
Notably Jerry & Marge Go Large
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Frankel
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jerry & Marge Go LargeJohn Hamburg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Love You, ManJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dinner for SchmucksAmy Heckerling
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VampsSix 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
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
I Love You, Man
as Justice Of The Peace
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I Love You, Man
as Justice Of The Peace
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
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 Wilmore 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.
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
6 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
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
I Love You, Man
as Justice Of The Peace
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Laundromat
as Jeff
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Jerry & Marge Go Large
as Steve
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Laundromat
as Jeff
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Laundromat
as Jeff
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
I Love You, Man
as Justice Of The Peace
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Mark Ruffalo
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Harvey Keitel
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Matt Damon
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Have your say
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Reference
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