Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8475
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mike Houston 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.
Mike Houston appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mike. She Said is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Todd Phillips, Maria Schrader, Steven Spielberg and others, Mike Houston 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.
She Said (2022) as Harvey Weinstein · Bridge of Spies (2015) as Man in Courtroom · Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) as Train Station Cop
Career snapshot
Ranked #8475 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2009–2024
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
She Said
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Bridge of Spies
Most frequent director
Todd Phillips
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Todd Phillips
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Bridge of Spies, True Story, The Drop — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.75 films | 6.32 films |
| Action | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | 6.53 films | 5.41 film |
| Crime | 6.41 film | 6.44 films | 5.41 film |
| Horror | — | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Money Car Driver.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.2 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
The current state of the argument, as Additional Guard.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Harvey Weinstein
Directed by Maria Schrader
as Man in Courtroom
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Donny
Directed by Michaël R. Roskam
as Additional Guard
Directed by Todd Phillips
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
Harvey Weinstein
She Said (2022)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Harvey Weinstein gives Mike Houston a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Man in Courtroom
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Performance score7.1
Bridge of Spies asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Man in Courtroom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Train Station Cop
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Performance score7.1
Inside Llewyn Davis asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Train Station Cop is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Donny
The Drop (2014)
Performance score6.7
The Drop asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Donny 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 Harvey Weinstein
Start here. She Said is the clearest statement of what Mike Houston does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mike 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.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Keeps the drama register of She Said but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Drop (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Inside Llewyn Davis but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Keeps the drama register of The Drop but asks for a colder reading of it.
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Bridge of Spies but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tony Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably Inside Llewyn Davis
Scott Derrickson
Director
1 film together
Notably Deliver Us from Evil
Michaël R. Roskam
Director
1 film together
Notably The Drop
Rupert Goold
Director
1 film together
Notably True Story
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Bridge of Spies
Maria Schrader
Director
1 film together
Notably She Said
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably Joker: Folie à Deux
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Maria Schrader
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She SaidSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bridge of SpiesJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside Llewyn DavisMichaël R. Roskam
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DropTony Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3Rupert Goold
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
True StoryScott Derrickson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deliver Us from EvilTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joker: Folie à DeuxSix 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
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Train Station Cop
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
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. Mike Houston 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 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
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
as Money Car Driver
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Joker: Folie à Deux
as Additional Guard
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
as Money Car Driver
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
as Money Car Driver
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Drop
as Donny
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
She Said
as Harvey Weinstein
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Community
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Reference
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