Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7208
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Phil Reeves 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 Reeves appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Phil. Gridiron Gang is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alexander Payne, Brian Robbins, Tom Shadyac and others, Phil Reeves 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.
Gridiron Gang (2006) as CIF Official · About Schmidt (2002) as Minister in Denver · Election (1999) as Walt Hendricks
Career snapshot
Ranked #7208 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1999–2020
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Gridiron Gang
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Gridiron Gang
Most frequent director
Alexander Payne
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Alexander Payne
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.3
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
6.9 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Election — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film 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. Election.
Most productive era
2000s
8 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 | 6.91 film | 6.83 films | 5.82 films | 5.61 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.91 film | 6.36 films | 6.03 films | 5.61 film |
| Crime | — | 6.72 films | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.43 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
1999Election
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Walt Hendricks. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2006Gridiron Gang
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2020Eat Wheaties!
The current state of the argument, as Earl Straw.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Walt Hendricks
Directed by Alexander Payne
as CIF Official
Directed by Phil Joanou
as Wayne Rink
Directed by Unknown
as Minister in Denver
Directed by Alexander Payne
as Earl Straw
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
Walt Hendricks
Election (1999)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Walt Hendricks gives Phil Reeves a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
CIF Official
Gridiron Gang (2006)
Performance score7.0
Gridiron Gang asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. CIF Official is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Wayne Rink
13 Going on 30 (2004)
Performance score7.0
13 Going on 30 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wayne Rink is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Minister in Denver
About Schmidt (2002)
Performance score6.8
About Schmidt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Minister in Denver 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 Walt Hendricks
Start here. Election is the clearest statement of what Phil Reeves does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 6.9 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.
About Schmidt (2002)
Same director as Election, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
13 Going on 30 (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of About Schmidt but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gridiron Gang (2006)
A deliberate change of key after 13 Going on 30 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Eat Wheaties! (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Gridiron Gang but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alexander Payne
Director
3 films together
Notably About Schmidt
Brad Silberling
Director
1 film together
Notably Moonlight Mile
Dean Parisot
Director
1 film together
Notably Fun with Dick and Jane
Kevin Rodney Sullivan
Director
1 film together
Notably Guess Who
Phil Joanou
Director
1 film together
Notably Gridiron Gang
Josh Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Blades of Glory
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Evan Almighty
Brian Robbins
Director
1 film together
Notably A Thousand Words
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alexander Payne
Director
3 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
About SchmidtPhil Joanou
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gridiron GangBrad Silberling
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Moonlight MileDean Parisot
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fun with Dick and JaneBrian Robbins
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Thousand WordsJosh Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blades of GloryKevin Rodney Sullivan
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Guess WhoTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Evan AlmightySix 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
Gridiron Gang
as CIF Official
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Moonlight Mile
as Mr. Don Tippet
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gridiron Gang
as CIF Official
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Evan Almighty
as Committee Member
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Election
as Walt Hendricks
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 Reeves 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
21 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
11 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
Gridiron Gang
as CIF Official
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gridiron Gang
as CIF Official
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Moonlight Mile
as Mr. Don Tippet
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gridiron Gang
as CIF Official
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Central Intelligence
as Principal Kent
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Central Intelligence
as Principal Kent
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Thousand Words
as Don Parker
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
About Schmidt
as Minister in Denver
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Matt Damon
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Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and action
Cillian Murphy
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Morgan Freeman
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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