Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11029
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Marc Grapey 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.
Marc Grapey appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Marc. Working Man 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, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for thriller, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rupert Wyatt, Greg Mottola, Ramin Bahrani and others, Marc Grapey 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.
Working Man (2019) as Unemployment Line Man · Friend Request (2019) as Sterling · While You Were Sleeping (1995) as Intern
Career snapshot
Ranked #11029 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1995–2019
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Working Man
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Working Man
Most frequent director
Greg Mottola
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Greg Mottola
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.5
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
1990s
7.0 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. While You Were Sleeping — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.0
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. While You Were Sleeping.
Most productive era
2010s
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.62 films | 6.42 films |
| Action | — | — | 5.92 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.13 films |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 6.41 film | 6.11 film |
| Romance | 7.01 film | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Intern.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2019Working Man
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Unemployment Line Man.
Career peak
2019Friend Request
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Unemployment Line Man
Directed by Unknown
as Mayor Ed Lee
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
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
Sterling
Friend Request (2019)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Sterling gives Marc Grapey a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Unemployment Line Man
Working Man (2019)
Performance score7.2
Working Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Unemployment Line Man is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Intern
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Performance score6.9
While You Were Sleeping asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Intern is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bob Arum
Ali (2001)
Performance score6.7
Ali asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bob Arum 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 Sterling
Start here. Friend Request is the clearest statement of what Marc Grapey does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Marc 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.
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Friend Request — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ali (2001)
A deliberate change of key after While You Were Sleeping — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Working Man (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Ali but asks for a colder reading of it.
Captive State (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Working Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Greg Mottola
Director
2 films together
Notably Adventureland
Jon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together
Notably While You Were Sleeping
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Ali
Ramin Bahrani
Director
1 film together
Notably At Any Price
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together
Notably Captive State
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Greg Mottola
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
AdventurelandJon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
While You Were SleepingMichael Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AliRupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captive StateRamin Bahrani
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
At Any PriceSix 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
Working Man
as Unemployment Line 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
Adventureland
as Panda Con Dad
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Working Man
as Unemployment Line Man
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ali
as Bob Arum
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Friend Request
as Sterling
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. Marc Grapey 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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
Working Man
as Unemployment Line Man
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Friend Request
as Sterling
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Adventureland
as Panda Con Dad
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Friend Request
as Sterling
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Working Man
as Unemployment Line Man
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Captive State
as Mayor Ed Lee
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Adventureland
as Panda Con Dad
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Working Man
as Unemployment Line Man
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Val Kilmer
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Jon Voight
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Marc Grapey performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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