Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15982
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Paul Jarrett represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 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 Jarrett appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Paul. Accused: The Karen Read Story is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 mystery, tv movie, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Linda-Lisa Hayter, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, R.J. Cutler and others, Paul Jarrett 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.
Accused: The Karen Read Story (2026) as William Read · The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019) as Dr. Phillips · If I Stay (2014) as Surgeon
Career snapshot
Ranked #15982 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1990–2026
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Accused: The Karen Read Story
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Accused: The Karen Read Story
Most frequent director
Linda-Lisa Hayter
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Linda-Lisa Hayter
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
2010s
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, If I Stay, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse — 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
7.0
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. Bird on a Wire.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.61 film | 7.13 films | 4.02 films |
| Action | — | 6.52 films | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.23 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | — | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | 6.21 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.61 film | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Bird on a Wire
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Carl Laemmle.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Accused: The Karen Read Story
8.0 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 William Read.
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 William Read
Directed by Linda-Lisa Hayter
as Parole Officer
Directed by Jeff F. King
as Stephen
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
William Read
Accused: The Karen Read Story (2026)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. William Read gives Paul Jarrett a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Phillips
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
Performance score7.4
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Phillips is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Surgeon
If I Stay (2014)
Performance score7.2
If I Stay asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Surgeon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Parole Officer
Damage (2009)
Performance score6.6
Damage asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Parole Officer 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 William Read
Start here. Accused: The Karen Read Story is the clearest statement of what Paul Jarrett does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 8.0 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.
Damage (2009)
Keeps the drama register of Accused: The Karen Read Story but asks for a colder reading of it.
If I Stay (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Damage but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
Keeps the drama register of If I Stay but asks for a colder reading of it.
Metamorphypus (2023)
Keeps the drama register of The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Badham
Director
1 film together
Notably Bird on a Wire
Takashi Shimizu
Director
1 film together
Notably The Grudge 2
Philip G. Atwell
Director
1 film together
Notably War
Jeff F. King
Director
1 film together
Notably Damage
David Slade
Director
1 film together
Notably The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
R.J. Cutler
Director
1 film together
Notably If I Stay
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Director
1 film together
Notably The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
Linda-Lisa Hayter
Director
1 film together
Notably Accused: The Karen Read Story
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Linda-Lisa Hayter
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Accused: The Karen Read StoryElle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Body Remembers When the World Broke OpenR.J. Cutler
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
If I StayJeff F. King
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DamagePhilip G. Atwell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarDavid Slade
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Twilight Saga: EclipseJohn Badham
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bird on a WireTakashi Shimizu
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Grudge 2Six 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
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
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 Twilight Saga: Eclipse
as Mr. Biers
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bird on a Wire
as Carl Laemmle
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
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 Jarrett 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
36 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 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
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
as Mr. Biers
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Accused: The Karen Read Story
as William Read
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Damage
as Parole Officer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
as Mr. Biers
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
If I Stay
as Surgeon
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Elliot Page
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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