Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12074
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Lenny Clarke represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Lenny is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lenny Clarke appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lenny. The Judge is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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, family, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Gordon Green, Paul Feig, Seth MacFarlane and others, Lenny Clarke 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.
The Judge (2014) as Juror #10 · Stronger (2017) as Uncle Bob · Rounders (1998) as Savino
Career snapshot
Ranked #12074 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1998–2025
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Judge
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Judge
Most frequent director
Bobby Farrelly
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Bobby Farrelly
Most common genre
Comedy
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.3
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
1990s
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. There's Something About Mary, Rounders — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
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. There's Something About Mary, Rounders.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 7.01 film | 6.22 films | 7.22 films | 0.01 film |
| Action | — | 6.01 film | 5.31 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 6.53 films | 5.93 films | 2.52 films |
| Crime | 7.01 film | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998There's Something About Mary
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Fireman.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014The Judge
7.3 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
2025All Saints Day
The current state of the argument, as The Captain.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Uncle Bob
Directed by David Gordon Green
as Gruff Grocer
Directed by Brad Silberling
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
Juror #10
The Judge (2014)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Juror #10 gives Lenny Clarke a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Uncle Bob
Stronger (2017)
Performance score7.1
Stronger asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Uncle Bob is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Savino
Rounders (1998)
Performance score6.9
Rounders asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Savino is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gruff Grocer
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Performance score6.7
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gruff Grocer 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 Juror #10
Start here. The Judge is the clearest statement of what Lenny Clarke does — accessible, 141 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lenny 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.
Rounders (1998)
Keeps the drama register of The Judge but asks for a colder reading of it.
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
A deliberate change of key after Rounders — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of Me, Myself & Irene but asks for a colder reading of it.
Stronger (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
3 films together
Notably There's Something About Mary
Brad Silberling
Director
2 films together
Notably Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
David Gordon Green
Director
2 films together
Notably Stronger
John Dahl
Director
1 film together
Notably Rounders
Brian Goodman
Director
1 film together
Notably What Doesn't Kill You
Greg Mottola
Director
1 film together
Notably Clear History
David Dobkin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Judge
Seth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together
Notably Ted 2
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghostbusters
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
3 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
There's Something About MaryDavid Gordon Green
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
StrongerBrad Silberling
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsDavid Dobkin
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The JudgeJohn Dahl
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoundersSeth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ted 2Greg Mottola
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Clear HistoryBrian Goodman
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Doesn't Kill YouPaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GhostbustersSix 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
The Judge
as Juror #10
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Moonlight Mile
as 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
The Judge
as Juror #10
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ghostbusters
as Coffee House Ghost (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Judge
as Juror #10
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. Lenny Clarke 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
27 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
9 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
The Judge
as Juror #10
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Rounders
as Savino
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Moonlight Mile
as Gordy
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Rounders
as Savino
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Judge
as Juror #10
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
What Doesn't Kill You
as Hogie
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
What Doesn't Kill You
as Hogie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
There's Something About Mary
as Fireman
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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