Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#24535
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Martyn Mayger 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.
Martyn Mayger appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Martyn. The Old Guard is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Simon Kinberg, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Brenda Chapman and others, Martyn Mayger 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 Old Guard (2020) as Office worker · The Current War (2018) as Lawyer · Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) as Gentleman
Career snapshot
Ranked #24535 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2014–2023
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Old Guard
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
The Old Guard
Most frequent director
Simon Kinberg
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Simon Kinberg
Most common genre
Adventure
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.1
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
2010s
6.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Holmes & Watson, The Current War, Mary Poppins Returns — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.0
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Holmes & Watson, The Current War, Mary Poppins Returns.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.71 film | — |
| Action | 5.51 film | 6.52 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.52 films |
| Comedy | 5.73 films | — |
| Crime | 4.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2014Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Action Car Driver (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Old Guard
7.1 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
2023War of the Worlds: The Attack
The current state of the argument, as Civilian.
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 Office worker
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
as Lawyer
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
as Gentleman
Directed by James Bobin
as Civilian
Directed by Unknown
as Auction Guest
Directed by Simon Kinberg
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
Office worker
The Old Guard (2020)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Office worker gives Martyn Mayger a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lawyer
The Current War (2018)
Performance score6.6
The Current War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lawyer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Gentleman
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Performance score6.6
Alice Through the Looking Glass asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gentleman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Civilian
War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)
Performance score6.5
War of the Worlds: The Attack asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Civilian 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 Office worker
Start here. The Old Guard is the clearest statement of what Martyn Mayger does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Martyn 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.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
Keeps the fantasy register of The Old Guard but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Current War (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Alice Through the Looking Glass — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The 355 (2022)
A deliberate change of key after The Current War — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)
Keeps the thriller register of The 355 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Justin Kurzel
Director
1 film together
Notably Assassin's Creed
James Bobin
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice Through the Looking Glass
Rob Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Mary Poppins Returns
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Current War
Etan Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Holmes & Watson
Brenda Chapman
Director
1 film together
Notably Come Away
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Director
1 film together
Notably The Old Guard
Simon Kinberg
Director
1 film together
Notably The 355
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Old GuardAlfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Current WarJames Bobin
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice Through the Looking GlassRob Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mary Poppins ReturnsShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night at the Museum: Secret of the TombSimon Kinberg
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The 355Brenda Chapman
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Come AwayJustin Kurzel
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Assassin's CreedEtan Cohen
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holmes & WatsonSix 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 Old Guard
as Office worker
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Current War
as Lawyer
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 Old Guard
as Office worker
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Alice Through the Looking Glass
as Gentleman
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Old Guard
as Office worker
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. Martyn Mayger 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in adventure, 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 Old Guard
as Office worker
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Old Guard
as Office worker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Current War
as Lawyer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
War of the Worlds: The Attack
as Civilian
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Old Guard
as Office worker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The 355
as Auction Guest
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Current War
as Lawyer
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Assassin's Creed
as Templar
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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