Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6734
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Phil Brooks 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.
Phil Brooks appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Phil. John Cena's Greatest Rivalries is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 action, mystery, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Byron Howard, Paul Levesque, John Cena and others, Phil Brooks 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.
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries (2022) as CM Punk · The Firefly Funhouse Match (2020) as CM Punk (archive footage) · WrestleMania XL Sunday (2024) as CM Punk
Career snapshot
Ranked #6734 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2019–2026
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
Most frequent director
Paul Levesque
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul Levesque
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 1m
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
2020s
7.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Night Patrol, Saturday Night's Main Event XLV, Zootopia 2 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.4
Across 9 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. Rabid, Girl on the Third Floor.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | — | 7.34 films |
| Action | — | 6.95 films |
| Thriller | 5.21 film | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.82 films |
| Horror | 5.52 films | 6.53 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2019Rabid
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Billy.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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.
Most recent film
2026Saturday Night's Main Event XLV
The current state of the argument, as CM Punk.
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.
11 of 11 films
as CM Punk (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
as Zebro Zebrowski (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
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
CM Punk
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries (2022)
Performance score9.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. CM Punk gives Phil Brooks a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
CM Punk (archive footage)
The Firefly Funhouse Match (2020)
Performance score8.2
The Firefly Funhouse Match asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. CM Punk (archive footage) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
CM Punk
WrestleMania XL Sunday (2024)
Performance score8.0
WrestleMania XL Sunday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. CM Punk is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Zebro Zebrowski (voice)
Zootopia 2 (2025)
Performance score7.5
Zootopia 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zebro Zebrowski (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 CM Punk
Start here. John Cena's Greatest Rivalries is the clearest statement of what Phil Brooks does — accessible, 140 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Phil 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 Firefly Funhouse Match (2020)
A deliberate change of key after John Cena's Greatest Rivalries — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
WrestleMania XL Sunday (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Firefly Funhouse Match — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
WrestleMania XL Saturday (2024)
Same director as WrestleMania XL Sunday, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Zootopia 2 (2025)
A deliberate change of key after WrestleMania XL Saturday — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Travis Stevens
Director
2 films together
Notably Jakob's Wife
Paul Levesque
Director
2 films together
Notably WrestleMania XL Sunday
John Cena
Director
1 film together
Notably John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Zootopia 2
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Levesque
Director
2 films together · 8.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
WrestleMania XL SundayTravis Stevens
Director
2 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jakob's WifeJohn Cena
Director
1 film together · 10.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John Cena's Greatest RivalriesByron Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Zootopia 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
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Zootopia 2
as Zebro Zebrowski (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
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
WrestleMania XL Sunday
as CM Punk
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
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. Phil Brooks 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in action, 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
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Zootopia 2
as Zebro Zebrowski (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Zootopia 2
as Zebro Zebrowski (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
John Cena's Greatest Rivalries
as CM Punk
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
WrestleMania XL Sunday
as CM Punk
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Zootopia 2
as Zebro Zebrowski (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Jakob's Wife
as Deputy Colton
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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