Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#76698
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Neilesh Ambu works on quiet performance 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.
Neilesh Ambu appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Neilesh. Official Secrets 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 quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, fantasy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Chris Foggin, Will Gluck, Armando Iannucci and others, Neilesh Ambu 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.
Official Secrets (2019) as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited) · Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021) as Passerby (uncredited) · Bank of Dave (2023) as High Court Journalist
Career snapshot
Ranked #76698 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2019–2024
Career length
5 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Official Secrets
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Official Secrets
Most frequent director
Chris Foggin
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Chris Foggin
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Personal History of David Copperfield, Official Secrets, Hope Gap — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. The Personal History of David Copperfield, Official Secrets, Hope Gap.
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 | 6.82 films | 6.42 films |
| Thriller | 7.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 7.02 films |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2019The Personal History of David Copperfield
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Middle Class Man (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Official Secrets
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
2024Starve Acre
The current state of the argument, as Cricketer (uncredited).
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.
6 of 6 films
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
Directed by Gavin Hood
as Passerby (uncredited)
Directed by Will Gluck
as High Court Journalist
Directed by Chris Foggin
as Cricketer (uncredited)
Directed by Unknown
as Middle Class Man (uncredited)
Directed by Armando Iannucci
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
GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
Official Secrets (2019)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. GCHQ Colleague (uncredited) gives Neilesh Ambu a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Passerby (uncredited)
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)
Performance score6.9
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Passerby (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
High Court Journalist
Bank of Dave (2023)
Performance score6.8
Bank of Dave asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. High Court Journalist is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cricketer (uncredited)
Starve Acre (2024)
Performance score6.5
Starve Acre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cricketer (uncredited) 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 GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
Start here. Official Secrets is the clearest statement of what Neilesh Ambu does — accessible, 112 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Neilesh 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.
The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Official Secrets — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of The Personal History of David Copperfield but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bank of Dave (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway but asks for a colder reading of it.
Starve Acre (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Bank of Dave but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
William Nicholson
Director
1 film together
Notably Hope Gap
Gavin Hood
Director
1 film together
Notably Official Secrets
Armando Iannucci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Personal History of David Copperfield
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
Chris Foggin
Director
1 film together
Notably Bank of Dave
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Gavin Hood
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Official SecretsWill Gluck
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter Rabbit 2: The RunawayChris Foggin
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bank of DaveArmando Iannucci
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 Personal History of David CopperfieldWilliam Nicholson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hope GapSix 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
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (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
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (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
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (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. Neilesh Ambu 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
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Starve Acre
as Cricketer (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
as Passerby (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
as Passerby (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Official Secrets
as GCHQ Colleague (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bank of Dave
as High Court Journalist
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
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