Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1106
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Paul F. Tompkins represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Paul is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Paul F. Tompkins appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Paul. There Will Be Blood is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 comedy, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jessica McKenna, Trevor Kirschner, Loren Bouchard and others, Paul F. Tompkins 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.
There Will Be Blood (2007) as Prescott · Tangled (2010) as Short Thug (voice) · Magnolia (1999) as Chad (Seduce & Destroy) (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1106 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1998–2026
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Most frequent director
Paul Thomas Anderson
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul Thomas Anderson
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
1990s
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Magnolia, Jack Frost — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.9
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. Magnolia, Jack Frost.
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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 7.22 films | — | — |
| Action | — | — | — | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | 6.44 films | 6.23 films | 5.45 films |
| Crime | — | 6.21 film | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Jack Frost
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Audience Member.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.1 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
2026Mock Trial
The current state of the argument.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Short Thug (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
as Chad (Seduce & Destroy) (voice)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
as Gino (voice)
Directed by J.G. Quintel
as Open Mic Host
Directed by Unknown
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
Prescott
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Prescott gives Paul F. Tompkins a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Short Thug (voice)
Tangled (2010)
Performance score7.6
Tangled asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Short Thug (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Chad (Seduce & Destroy) (voice)
Magnolia (1999)
Performance score7.5
Magnolia asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chad (Seduce & Destroy) (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gino (voice)
Regular Show: The Movie (2015)
Performance score7.2
Regular Show: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gino (voice) 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 Prescott
Start here. There Will Be Blood is the clearest statement of what Paul F. Tompkins does — accessible, 158 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Paul 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.
Magnolia (1999)
Same director as There Will Be Blood, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)
A deliberate change of key after Magnolia — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tangled (2010)
Keeps the adventure register of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny but asks for a colder reading of it.
Regular Show: The Movie (2015)
Keeps the adventure register of Tangled but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Adam McKay
Director
2 films together
Notably Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
2 films together
Notably There Will Be Blood
Troy Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Jack Frost
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Tangled
Ross Shuman
Director
1 film together
Notably Hell and Back
J.G. Quintel
Director
1 film together
Notably Regular Show: The Movie
Scott Aukerman
Director
1 film together
Notably Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Ken Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation
Eric Appel
Director
1 film together
Notably Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Loren Bouchard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bob's Burgers Movie
Trevor Kirschner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thundermans Return
Jessica McKenna
Director
1 film together
Notably Mock Trial
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
2 films together · 7.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
There Will Be BloodAdam McKay
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron BurgundyByron Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TangledJ.G. Quintel
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Regular Show: The MovieTrevor Kirschner
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thundermans ReturnLoren Bouchard
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bob's Burgers MovieEric Appel
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Weird: The Al Yankovic StoryKen Cunningham
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LEGO Star Wars Summer VacationTroy Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jack FrostScott Aukerman
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Between Two Ferns: The MovieRoss Shuman
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hell and BackJessica McKenna
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mock TrialSix 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
There Will Be Blood
as Prescott
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tangled
as Short Thug (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
There Will Be Blood
as Prescott
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Magnolia
as Chad (Seduce & Destroy) (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
There Will Be Blood
as Prescott
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. Paul F. Tompkins 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.
Career Achievement
Awarded
28 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
There Will Be Blood
as Prescott
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Bob's Burgers Movie
as Short Carnie (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tangled
as Short Thug (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Bob's Burgers Movie
as Short Carnie (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Tangled
as Short Thug (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Thundermans Return
as King Crab
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Jack Frost
as Audience Member
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Tangled
as Short Thug (voice)
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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