Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5785
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ray Fearon represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 30 years in, and Ray is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ray Fearon appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ray. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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 romance, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dani Girdwood, Martin Campbell, Chris Foggin and others, Ray Fearon 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.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) as Firenze (voice) · My Fault: London (2025) as William · Hamlet (1996) as Francisco
Career snapshot
Ranked #5785 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1996–2026
Career length
30 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Most frequent director
Martin Campbell
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Martin Campbell
Most common genre
Comedy
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
7.0
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
6.6
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
2000s
8.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
8.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.9
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. Hamlet.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 7.31 film | — | — | 6.33 films |
| Action | — | — | 7.01 film | 6.63 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.01 film | 6.63 films |
| Comedy | — | — | — | 5.75 films |
| Crime | — | — | 7.01 film | 6.72 films |
| Romance | — | — | 7.01 film | 6.83 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Hamlet
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Francisco.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
8.2 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
The current state of the argument, as William.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Firenze (voice)
Directed by Chris Columbus
as William
Directed by Dani Girdwood
as Commander Richard Bromley
Directed by Martin Campbell
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
Firenze (voice)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Firenze (voice) gives Ray Fearon a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
William
My Fault: London (2025)
Performance score7.5
My Fault: London asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. William is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Francisco
Hamlet (1996)
Performance score7.2
Hamlet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Francisco is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Commander Richard Bromley
The Foreigner (2017)
Performance score7.1
The Foreigner asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Commander Richard Bromley 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 Firenze (voice)
Start here. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the clearest statement of what Ray Fearon does — accessible, 152 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ray 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.
Hamlet (1996)
A deliberate change of key after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Foreigner (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Hamlet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
My Fault: London (2025)
A deliberate change of key after The Foreigner — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Your Fault: London (2026)
Same director as My Fault: London, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Campbell
Director
4 films together
Notably The Foreigner
Dani Girdwood
Director
2 films together
Notably My Fault: London
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Hamlet
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Bill Condon
Director
1 film together
Notably Beauty and the Beast
Doug Naylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Dwarf: The Promised Land
Greta Gerwig
Director
1 film together
Notably Barbie
Chris Foggin
Director
1 film together
Notably Tinsel Town
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Campbell
Director
4 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The ForeignerDani Girdwood
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
My Fault: LondonChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HamletGreta Gerwig
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BarbieBill Condon
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beauty and the BeastDoug Naylor
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red Dwarf: The Promised LandChris Foggin
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tinsel TownSix 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
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
My Fault: London
as William
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
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. Ray Fearon 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
30 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
5 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
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Foreigner
as Commander Richard Bromley
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Your Fault: London
as William
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Foreigner
as Commander Richard Bromley
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
My Fault: London
as William
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
as Firenze (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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