Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#27432
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Leon Lamar 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.
Leon Lamar appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Leon. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 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 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, science fiction, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tim Hill, Doug Liman, Sam Miller and others, Leon Lamar 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 Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) as Old Man · Trouble with the Curve (2012) as Regular #2 · American Made (2017) as Elderly Man
Career snapshot
Ranked #27432 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1999–2023
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Most frequent director
Tim Hill
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tim Hill
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.4
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
6.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. They Cloned Tyrone, The War with Grandpa — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.5
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. Forces of Nature.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.54 films | — |
| Action | — | 7.41 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Comedy | 5.51 film | 6.14 films | 6.52 films |
| Crime | — | 6.42 films | — |
| Romance | 5.51 film | 7.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Forces of Nature
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sunseeker.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2013The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
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.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Frog.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Old Man
Directed by Francis Lawrence
as Elderly Man
Directed by Doug Liman
as Frog
Directed by Unknown
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
Old Man
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Old Man gives Leon Lamar a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Regular #2
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
Performance score6.9
Trouble with the Curve asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Regular #2 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Elderly Man
American Made (2017)
Performance score6.8
American Made asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elderly Man is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Widower
Poms (2019)
Performance score6.6
Poms asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Widower 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 Old Man
Start here. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the clearest statement of what Leon Lamar does — accessible, 146 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Leon 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.
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
A deliberate change of key after The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
American Made (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Trouble with the Curve but asks for a colder reading of it.
Poms (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of American Made but asks for a colder reading of it.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
Same director as Poms, 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.
Bronwen Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Forces of Nature
Robert Lorenz
Director
1 film together
Notably Trouble with the Curve
Francis Lawrence
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Ben Falcone
Director
1 film together
Notably Tammy
Sam Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably No Good Deed
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably American Made
Tim Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably The War with Grandpa
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Francis Lawrence
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hunger Games: Catching FireRobert Lorenz
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Trouble with the CurveDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American MadeTim Hill
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 War with GrandpaSam Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Good DeedBronwen Hughes
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Forces of NatureBen Falcone
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TammySix 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 Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Trouble with the Curve
as Regular #2
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 Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Trouble with the Curve
as Regular #2
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
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. Leon Lamar 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
24 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
7 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
They Cloned Tyrone
as Frog
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Trouble with the Curve
as Regular #2
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
They Cloned Tyrone
as Frog
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
as Old Man
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
American Made
as Elderly Man
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Forces of Nature
as Sunseeker
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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