Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3351
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Orion Lee 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.
Orion Lee appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Orion. Project Hail Mary is the clearest case: a film rated 8.8 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 science fiction, adventure, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Phil Lord, Eric Lin, Domee Shi and others, Orion Lee 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.
Project Hail Mary (2026) as Dr. Li · Fury (2014) as Tired GI #1 · Turning Red (2022) as Jin Lee (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3351 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.8
Project Hail Mary
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
Project Hail Mary
Most frequent director
Phil Lord
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Phil Lord
Most common genre
Science Fiction
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.5
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
2020s
7.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Project Hail Mary, Rosemead, Turning Red — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.4
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. Vanish in Smoke, Only You, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.22 films | 6.82 films |
| Action | 7.04 films | — |
| Thriller | 7.31 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.41 film |
| Romance | 6.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012Skyfall
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shanghai Barman.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
8.8 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. The current state of the argument, as Dr. Li.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Dr. Li
Directed by Phil Lord
as Jin Lee (voice)
Directed by Domee Shi
as Tired GI #1
Directed by David Ayer
as Shanghai Barman
Directed by Sam Mendes
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
Dr. Li
Project Hail Mary (2026)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dr. Li gives Orion Lee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jin Lee (voice)
Turning Red (2022)
Performance score7.5
Turning Red asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jin Lee (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tired GI #1
Fury (2014)
Performance score7.5
Fury asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tired GI #1 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
King-Lu
First Cow (2020)
Performance score7.4
First Cow asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. King-Lu 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 Dr. Li
Start here. Project Hail Mary is the clearest statement of what Orion Lee does — accessible, 157 minutes, and rated 8.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Orion 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.
Skyfall (2012)
Keeps the adventure register of Project Hail Mary but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fury (2014)
Keeps the action register of Skyfall but asks for a colder reading of it.
First Cow (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Fury but asks for a colder reading of it.
Turning Red (2022)
A deliberate change of key after First Cow — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Mendes
Director
1 film together
Notably Skyfall
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Fury
Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Harry Wootliff
Director
1 film together
Notably Only You
Domee Shi
Director
1 film together
Notably Turning Red
Eric Lin
Director
1 film together
Notably Rosemead
Phil Lord
Director
1 film together
Notably Project Hail Mary
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Phil Lord
Director
1 film together · 8.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Project Hail MaryDavid Ayer
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FuryDomee Shi
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Turning RedSam Mendes
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SkyfallRian Johnson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Last JediEric Lin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RosemeadHarry Wootliff
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Only YouZack Snyder
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice LeagueSix 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
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Only You
as Eddie
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Justice League
as Star Labs Scientist
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
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. Orion Lee 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.
Science Fiction Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in science fiction, 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
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Only You
as Eddie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Turning Red
as Jin Lee (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Project Hail Mary
as Dr. Li
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Canady's First Order Monitor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fury
as Tired GI #1
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Canady's First Order Monitor
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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