Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4086
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Rizwan Manji 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.
Rizwan Manji appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rizwan. The Wolf of Wall Street is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Fawzia Mirza, Amy Landecker, Miguel Arteta and others, Rizwan Manji 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.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) as Kalil · Journey to Bethlehem (2023) as Gaspar · Kissing Is the Easy Part (2026) as College Advisor
Career snapshot
Ranked #4086 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
The Wolf of Wall Street
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Wolf of Wall Street
Most frequent director
Fawzia Mirza
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Fawzia Mirza
Most common genre
Comedy
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Transformers, Charlie Wilson's War — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Transformers, Charlie Wilson's War.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.64 films | 5.94 films |
| Action | 7.01 film | — | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 6.84 films | 5.97 films |
| Crime | — | 8.31 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.32 films | 6.34 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007Transformers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Akram.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.3 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
2026For Worse
The current state of the argument, as Mark.
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.
18 of 18 films
as College Advisor
Directed by Fawzia Mirza
as Akram
Directed by Michael Bay
as Le Fou
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
Kalil
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kalil gives Rizwan Manji a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Gaspar
Journey to Bethlehem (2023)
Performance score7.7
Journey to Bethlehem asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gaspar is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
College Advisor
Kissing Is the Easy Part (2026)
Performance score7.2
Kissing Is the Easy Part asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. College Advisor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Akram
Transformers (2007)
Performance score6.9
Transformers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Akram 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 Kalil
Start here. The Wolf of Wall Street is the clearest statement of what Rizwan Manji does — accessible, 180 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Rizwan 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.
Transformers (2007)
A deliberate change of key after The Wolf of Wall Street — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Transformers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Journey to Bethlehem (2023)
Same director as Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Kissing Is the Easy Part (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Journey to Bethlehem — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mike Nichols
Director
1 film together
Notably Charlie Wilson's War
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Morning Glory
Larry Charles
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dictator
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wolf of Wall Street
Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together
Notably Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Amy Landecker
Director
1 film together
Notably For Worse
Fawzia Mirza
Director
1 film together
Notably Kissing Is the Easy Part
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wolf of Wall StreetFawzia Mirza
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kissing Is the Easy PartMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TransformersMike Nichols
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Charlie Wilson's WarRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Morning GloryMiguel Arteta
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad DayLarry Charles
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 DictatorAmy Landecker
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For WorseSix 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
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration
as Le Fou
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
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. Rizwan Manji 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
12 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
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration
as Le Fou
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration
as Le Fou
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers
as Akram
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Wolf of Wall Street
as Kalil
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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