Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12071
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Matt O'Leary 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.
Matt O'Leary appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matt. In Time is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Zemeckis, Gore Verbinski, Wayne Kramer and others, Matt O'Leary 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.
In Time (2011) as Moser · Frailty (2002) as Young Fenton · Death Sentence (2007) as Joe Darley
Career snapshot
Ranked #12071 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2001–2018
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
In Time
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
In Time
Most frequent director
Robert Rodriguez
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Rodriguez
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
2010s
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Welcome to Marwen, Skyscraper, The Lone Ranger — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Solstice, Live Free or Die Hard, Death Sentence.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.25 films | 6.51 film |
| Action | 6.14 films | 6.34 films |
| Thriller | 6.64 films | 6.63 films |
| Comedy | 5.42 films | 6.22 films |
| Crime | 6.35 films | 6.51 film |
| Horror | 5.31 film | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Danny Morrison.
Highest rated performance
2002Frailty
7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2006Brick
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2018Skyscraper
The current state of the argument, as Skinny Hacker.
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 The Brain
Directed by Rian Johnson
as Young Fenton
Directed by Bill Paxton
as Moser
Directed by Andrew Niccol
as Joe Darley
Directed by James Wan
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
The Brain
Brick (2006)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The Brain gives Matt O'Leary a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Young Fenton
Frailty (2002)
Performance score7.1
Frailty asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Fenton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Moser
In Time (2011)
Performance score6.9
In Time asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Moser is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Joe Darley
Death Sentence (2007)
Performance score6.7
Death Sentence asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Joe Darley 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 The Brain
Start here. Brick is the clearest statement of what Matt O'Leary does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matt 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.
Frailty (2002)
Keeps the crime register of Brick but asks for a colder reading of it.
Death Sentence (2007)
Keeps the crime register of Frailty but asks for a colder reading of it.
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Keeps the action register of Death Sentence but asks for a colder reading of it.
In Time (2011)
Keeps the action register of Live Free or Die Hard but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Rodriguez
Director
2 films together
Notably Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
Bill Paxton
Director
1 film together
Notably Frailty
Barbara Kopple
Director
1 film together
Notably Havoc
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Brick
James Wan
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Sentence
Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together
Notably Live Free or Die Hard
Daniel Myrick
Director
1 film together
Notably Solstice
Darren Lynn Bousman
Director
1 film together
Notably Mother's Day
Andrew Niccol
Director
1 film together
Notably In Time
Wayne Kramer
Director
1 film together
Notably Pawn Shop Chronicles
Gore Verbinski
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lone Ranger
Robert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together
Notably Welcome to Marwen
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Rodriguez
Director
2 films together · 5.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost DreamsAndrew Niccol
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In TimeBill Paxton
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FrailtyJames Wan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death SentenceRian Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BrickLen Wiseman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live Free or Die HardRobert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Welcome to MarwenDarren Lynn Bousman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mother's DayGore Verbinski
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 Lone RangerWayne Kramer
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pawn Shop ChroniclesDaniel Myrick
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SolsticeBarbara Kopple
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HavocSix 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
In Time
as Moser
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Frailty
as Young Fenton
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Frailty
as Young Fenton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
In Time
as Moser
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Brick
as The Brain
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. Matt O'Leary 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in action, 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
Brick
as The Brain
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Frailty
as Young Fenton
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Welcome to Marwen
as Lieutenant Benz / Carl
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Brick
as The Brain
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
In Time
as Moser
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Skyscraper
as Skinny Hacker
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Death Sentence
as Joe Darley
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Live Free or Die Hard
as Clay
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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