Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3746
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Peter Gerety represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Peter is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Peter Gerety appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Peter. Changeling is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brian McElhaney, James Mangold, J.C. Chandor and others, Peter Gerety 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.
Changeling (2008) as Dr. Earl W. Tarr · Inside Man (2006) as Captain Coughlin · Working Man (2019) as Allery Parkes
Career snapshot
Ranked #3746 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1994–2026
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Changeling
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Changeling
Most frequent director
Mike Nichols
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Mike Nichols
Most common genre
Drama
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.7
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Working Man, A Most Violent Year, Get the Gringo — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. Wolf.
Most productive era
2000s
11 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 | 6.11 film | 6.79 films | 6.94 films | 7.11 film |
| Action | — | 5.51 film | 6.61 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.44 films | 6.62 films | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.02 films | — | 6.51 film |
| Crime | — | 7.33 films | 6.62 films | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.11 film | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.11 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Wolf
Where our catalogue meets this career, as George.
Highest rated performance
2008Changeling
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2019Working Man
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Pizza Movie
The current state of the argument, as Grandpa.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Captain Coughlin
Directed by Spike Lee
as Dr. Miles / Humpty Dumpty
Directed by Daniel Barnz
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
Allery Parkes
Working Man (2019)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Allery Parkes gives Peter Gerety a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Earl W. Tarr
Changeling (2008)
Performance score7.4
Changeling asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Earl W. Tarr is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Captain Coughlin
Inside Man (2006)
Performance score7.3
Inside Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Coughlin is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Miles / Humpty Dumpty
Phoebe in Wonderland (2008)
Performance score7.1
Phoebe in Wonderland asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Miles / Humpty Dumpty 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 Allery Parkes
Start here. Working Man is the clearest statement of what Peter Gerety does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Peter 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.
Inside Man (2006)
Keeps the drama register of Working Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Changeling (2008)
Keeps the crime register of Inside Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Phoebe in Wonderland (2008)
Keeps the drama register of Changeling but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Complete Unknown (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Phoebe in Wonderland but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mike Nichols
Director
2 films together
Notably Charlie Wilson's War
Robert Redford
Director
1 film together
Notably The Legend of Bagger Vance
Daniel Algrant
Director
1 film together
Notably People I Know
Stephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together
Notably Syriana
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably War of the Worlds
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Inside Man
Daniel Barnz
Director
1 film together
Notably Phoebe in Wonderland
Kimberly Peirce
Director
1 film together
Notably Stop-Loss
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Changeling
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Public Enemies
Robert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together
Notably Flight
Adrian Grünberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Get the Gringo
J.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together
Notably A Most Violent Year
James Mangold
Director
1 film together
Notably A Complete Unknown
Brian McElhaney
Director
1 film together
Notably Pizza Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mike Nichols
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
Charlie Wilson's WarClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChangelingSpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside ManDaniel Barnz
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Phoebe in WonderlandJames Mangold
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Complete UnknownRobert Zemeckis
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FlightMichael Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Public EnemiesJ.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Most Violent YearAdrian Grünberg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Get the GringoSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
War of the WorldsRobert Redford
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Legend of Bagger VanceBrian McElhaney
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pizza MovieStephen Gaghan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SyrianaKimberly Peirce
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stop-LossDaniel Algrant
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
People I KnowSix 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
Inside Man
as Captain Coughlin
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Complete Unknown
as Federal Judge
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Changeling
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Stop-Loss
as Carlson
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Working Man
as Allery Parkes
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. Peter Gerety 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
32 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
15 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
Changeling
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Changeling
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Complete Unknown
as Federal Judge
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Changeling
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Changeling
as Dr. Earl W. Tarr
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
as Chief Brooks
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Charlie Wilson's War
as Larry Liddle
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Public Enemies
as Louis Piquett
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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