Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8018
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Lew Temple represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Lew is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lew Temple appears in 29 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lew. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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 drama, horror, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mark David, Brian Presley, Karen Maine and others, Lew Temple 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.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) as Land Pirate Lew · Spirit Untamed (2021) as Conductor (voice) · 21 Grams (2003) as County Sheriff
Career snapshot
Ranked #8018 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
29
1998–2026
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Most frequent director
Tony Scott
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Tony Scott
Most common genre
Drama
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Waitress, Déjà Vu, Domino — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
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 Newton Boys.
Most productive era
2020s
16 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 | 6.11 film | 6.63 films | 6.24 films | 4.78 films |
| Action | 6.11 film | 6.42 films | 6.03 films | 6.02 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.73 films | 6.16 films | 5.25 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.71 film | 7.32 films | 5.72 films |
| Crime | 6.11 film | 6.62 films | — | 4.84 films |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film | — | 7.11 film |
| Horror | — | — | — | 4.58 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998The Newton Boys
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Waiter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
7.6 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
2026Mr. Wonderful
The current state of the argument, as Reverend Fletcher.
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.
29 of 29 films
as Land Pirate Lew
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Conductor (voice)
Directed by Elaine Bogan
as County Sheriff
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
as Daniel Glenn
Directed by Brian Presley
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
Land Pirate Lew
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Land Pirate Lew gives Lew Temple a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Coach Mitch Belew
You Gotta Believe (2024)
Performance score7.2
You Gotta Believe asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Coach Mitch Belew is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Conductor (voice)
Spirit Untamed (2021)
Performance score7.2
Spirit Untamed asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Conductor (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
County Sheriff
21 Grams (2003)
Performance score7.2
21 Grams asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. County Sheriff 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 Land Pirate Lew
Start here. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is the clearest statement of what Lew Temple does — accessible, 162 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lew 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.
21 Grams (2003)
Keeps the drama register of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Spirit Untamed (2021)
A deliberate change of key after 21 Grams — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Hostile Territory (2022)
Keeps the western register of Spirit Untamed but asks for a colder reading of it.
You Gotta Believe (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Hostile Territory but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tony Scott
Director
3 films together
Notably Déjà Vu
Gore Verbinski
Director
2 films together
Notably Rango
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably The Newton Boys
Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together
Notably 21 Grams
Adrienne Shelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Waitress
Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Elaine Bogan
Director
1 film together
Notably Spirit Untamed
Karen Maine
Director
1 film together
Notably Rosaline
Brian Presley
Director
1 film together
Notably Hostile Territory
Mark David
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Wonderful
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tony Scott
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
Déjà VuGore Verbinski
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
RangoQuentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a Time... in HollywoodElaine Bogan
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spirit UntamedAlejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
21 GramsKaren Maine
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RosalineBrian Presley
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hostile TerritoryAdrienne Shelly
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WaitressRichard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Newton BoysMark David
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. WonderfulSix 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
21 Grams
as County Sheriff
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Rosaline
as Mr. Danieli
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Land Pirate Lew
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Land Pirate Lew
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Land Pirate Lew
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. Lew Temple 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
28 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
16 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
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Land Pirate Lew
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
21 Grams
as County Sheriff
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rosaline
as Mr. Danieli
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Impuratus
as Gabe Proctor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spirit Untamed
as Conductor (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Hostile Territory
as Daniel Glenn
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Rango
as Furgus / Hitch (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Land Pirate Lew
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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Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — Quentin Tarantino
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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