Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#17344
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Matthew G. Taylor 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.
Matthew G. Taylor appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matthew. Lucky Number Slevin is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Guillermo del Toro, Tarsem Singh, Paul McGuigan and others, Matthew G. Taylor 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.
Lucky Number Slevin (2006) as Featured (uncredited) · Cinderella Man (2005) as Primo Carnera · Pacific Rim (2013) as Saltchuck Crew
Career snapshot
Ranked #17344 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1999–2013
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Lucky Number Slevin
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Cinderella Man
Most frequent director
Guillermo del Toro
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Guillermo del Toro
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Detroit Rock City — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
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. Detroit Rock City.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | — | 7.52 films | 6.11 film |
| Action | — | 6.13 films | 6.72 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.53 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.53 films | — |
| Romance | — | 7.41 film | — |
| Horror | — | 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 Chongo.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.5 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
2013Pacific Rim
The current state of the argument, as Saltchuck Crew.
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 Featured (uncredited)
Directed by Paul McGuigan
as Primo Carnera
Directed by Ron Howard
as Saltchuck Crew
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
as Chongo
Directed by Adam Rifkin
as Mondragon (King's Guard)
Directed by Tarsem Singh
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Featured (uncredited)
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Featured (uncredited) gives Matthew G. Taylor a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Primo Carnera
Cinderella Man (2005)
Performance score7.2
Cinderella Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Primo Carnera is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Saltchuck Crew
Pacific Rim (2013)
Performance score7.1
Pacific Rim asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Saltchuck Crew is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Chongo
Detroit Rock City (1999)
Performance score6.6
Detroit Rock City asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chongo 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 Featured (uncredited)
Start here. Lucky Number Slevin is the clearest statement of what Matthew G. Taylor does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matthew 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.
Detroit Rock City (1999)
A deliberate change of key after Lucky Number Slevin — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cinderella Man (2005)
A deliberate change of key after Detroit Rock City — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Immortals (2011)
Keeps the drama register of Cinderella Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Keeps the action register of Immortals but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Adam Rifkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Detroit Rock City
Andrzej Bartkowiak
Director
1 film together
Notably Exit Wounds
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Cinderella Man
Paul McGuigan
Director
1 film together
Notably Lucky Number Slevin
Tarsem Singh
Director
1 film together
Notably Immortals
Guillermo del Toro
Director
1 film together
Notably Pacific Rim
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul McGuigan
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lucky Number SlevinRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cinderella ManGuillermo del Toro
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pacific RimAdam Rifkin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Detroit Rock CityTarsem Singh
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ImmortalsAndrzej Bartkowiak
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Exit WoundsSix 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
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Cinderella Man
as Primo Carnera
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Pacific Rim
as Saltchuck Crew
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
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. Matthew G. Taylor 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
5 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
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Cinderella Man
as Primo Carnera
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Lucky Number Slevin
as Featured (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Pacific Rim
as Saltchuck Crew
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Pacific Rim
as Saltchuck Crew
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Cinderella Man
as Primo Carnera
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Pacific Rim
as Saltchuck Crew
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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