Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#609
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Robert Picardo represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Robert is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robert Picardo appears in 25 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. Total Recall is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Marc Scott Zicree, John Putch, Greg Mottola and others, Robert Picardo 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.
Total Recall (1990) as Johnnycab (voice) · Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as Enterprise EMH · A Biltmore Christmas (2023) as Harold Balaban
Career snapshot
Ranked #609 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
25
1985–2025
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Total Recall
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Total Recall
Most frequent director
Joe Dante
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Joe Dante
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.5
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
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Small Soldiers, Star Trek: First Contact, Matinee — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The 'Burbs, Amazon Women on the Moon, Back to School.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.71 film | — | 6.02 films | — |
| Action | — | 7.13 films | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 7.31 film | — | — | 6.11 film |
| Comedy | 6.33 films | 6.64 films | 6.41 film | 6.02 films | 5.53 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Romance | — | 6.51 film | — | — | 6.91 film |
| Horror | 6.81 film | 6.61 film | — | — | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1985Legend
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Meg Mucklebones.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1990Total Recall
7.4 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
2025Werewolf Game
The current state of the argument, as Bill.
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.
25 of 25 films
as Enterprise EMH
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
as Johnnycab (voice)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
as Harold Balaban
Directed by John Putch
as Joe, Garbageman #2
Directed by Joe Dante
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
Enterprise EMH
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Enterprise EMH gives Robert Picardo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Johnnycab (voice)
Total Recall (1990)
Performance score7.2
Total Recall asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Johnnycab (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Harold Balaban
A Biltmore Christmas (2023)
Performance score6.8
A Biltmore Christmas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harold Balaban is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Forster
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Performance score6.8
Gremlins 2: The New Batch asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Forster 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 Enterprise EMH
Start here. Star Trek: First Contact is the clearest statement of what Robert Picardo does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robert 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 'Burbs (1989)
Keeps the thriller register of Star Trek: First Contact but asks for a colder reading of it.
Total Recall (1990)
A deliberate change of key after The 'Burbs — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
A deliberate change of key after Total Recall — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Biltmore Christmas (2023)
Keeps the fantasy register of Gremlins 2: The New Batch but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joe Dante
Director
6 films together
Notably The 'Burbs
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Legend
Alan Metter
Director
1 film together
Notably Back to School
Robert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together
Notably Amazon Women on the Moon
Paul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together
Notably Total Recall
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably L.A. Story
Jonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: First Contact
Alex Winter
Director
1 film together
Notably Ben 10: Race Against Time
Lorene Scafaria
Director
1 film together
Notably The Meddler
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably Hail, Caesar!
Greg Mottola
Director
1 film together
Notably Confess, Fletch
John Putch
Director
1 film together
Notably A Biltmore Christmas
Marc Scott Zicree
Director
1 film together
Notably Space Command Redemption
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joe Dante
Director
6 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The 'BurbsPaul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Total RecallJonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: First ContactJohn Putch
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Biltmore ChristmasMick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
L.A. StoryRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LegendAlan Metter
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Back to SchoolGreg Mottola
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Confess, FletchLorene Scafaria
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MeddlerJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hail, Caesar!Alex Winter
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ben 10: Race Against TimeRobert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Amazon Women on the MoonMarc Scott Zicree
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Space Command RedemptionSix 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
Total Recall
as Johnnycab (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
Buttons
as Mr. Wentworth
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Total Recall
as Johnnycab (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
L.A. Story
as Voicephone (voice) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Star Trek: First Contact
as Enterprise EMH
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. Robert Picardo 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
40 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
13 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
Total Recall
as Johnnycab (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Star Trek: First Contact
as Enterprise EMH
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Buttons
as Mr. Wentworth
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Werewolf Game
as Bill
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Total Recall
as Johnnycab (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Small Soldiers
as Ralph, Clean Room Technician
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Matinee
as Howard
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Legend
as Meg Mucklebones
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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