Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#53860
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Nathaniel Augustson 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.
Nathaniel Augustson appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nathaniel. Hell or High Water is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 action, western, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with B.J. Novak, Ric Roman Waugh, David Mackenzie, Nathaniel Augustson 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.
Hell or High Water (2016) as Gas Station Thug #1 · Shot Caller (2017) as Chef · The Space Between Us (2017) as Alfonso (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #53860 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2016–2023
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Hell or High Water
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Hell or High Water
Most frequent director
B.J. Novak
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With B.J. Novak
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
6.4
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
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Shot Caller, The Space Between Us, Hell or High Water — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.1
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
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. Shot Caller, The Space Between Us, Hell or High Water.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | 7.13 films | 6.31 film |
| Action | — | 6.31 film |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.51 film |
| Crime | 7.22 films | — |
| Romance | 7.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Gas Station Thug #1. 7.3 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
2023Surrounded
The current state of the argument, as Halfbreed.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Gas Station Thug #1
Directed by David Mackenzie
as Chef
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
as Alfonso (uncredited)
Directed by Unknown
as Halfbreed
Directed by Unknown
as Rowdy Stranger #1
Directed by B.J. Novak
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
Gas Station Thug #1
Hell or High Water (2016)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gas Station Thug #1 gives Nathaniel Augustson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Chef
Shot Caller (2017)
Performance score6.9
Shot Caller asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chef is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Alfonso (uncredited)
The Space Between Us (2017)
Performance score6.9
The Space Between Us asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alfonso (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Halfbreed
Surrounded (2023)
Performance score6.5
Surrounded asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Halfbreed 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 Gas Station Thug #1
Start here. Hell or High Water is the clearest statement of what Nathaniel Augustson does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nathaniel 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.
Shot Caller (2017)
Keeps the crime register of Hell or High Water but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Space Between Us (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Shot Caller but asks for a colder reading of it.
Vengeance (2022)
A deliberate change of key after The Space Between Us — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Surrounded (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Vengeance — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Mackenzie
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hell or High WaterRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shot CallerB.J. Novak
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VengeanceSix 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
Hell or High Water
as Gas Station Thug #1
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 Space Between Us
as Alfonso (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hell or High Water
as Gas Station Thug #1
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Space Between Us
as Alfonso (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hell or High Water
as Gas Station Thug #1
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. Nathaniel Augustson 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
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
Hell or High Water
as Gas Station Thug #1
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shot Caller
as Chef
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Space Between Us
as Alfonso (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Vengeance
as Rowdy Stranger #1
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hell or High Water
as Gas Station Thug #1
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Surrounded
as Halfbreed
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shot Caller
as Chef
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Surrounded
as Halfbreed
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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