Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7993
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sebastian Maniscalco 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.
Sebastian Maniscalco appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sebastian. Green Book is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 comedy, fantasy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Paul Dugdale, John Krasinski, Jerry Seinfeld and others, Sebastian Maniscalco 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.
Green Book (2018) as Johnny Venere · The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) as Spike (voice) · IF (2024) as Magician Mouse (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7993 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2017–2025
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Green Book
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Green Book
Most frequent director
Paul Dugdale
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Paul Dugdale
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.2
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
2010s
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Green Book, Tag, The House — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
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. Green Book, Tag, The House.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 8.41 film | 5.92 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.93 films | 6.48 films |
| Crime | 5.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017The House
Where our catalogue meets this career, as The Stand-Up.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Green Book
8.4 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
2025Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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 Johnny Venere
Directed by Peter Farrelly
as Spike (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Magician Mouse (voice)
Directed by John Krasinski
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
Johnny Venere
Green Book (2018)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Johnny Venere gives Sebastian Maniscalco a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Spike (voice)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Performance score7.6
The Super Mario Bros. Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Spike (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me? (2022)
Performance score7.3
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me? asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right (2025)
Performance score6.9
Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Johnny Venere
Start here. Green Book is the clearest statement of what Sebastian Maniscalco does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sebastian 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.
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me? (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Green Book but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me? but asks for a colder reading of it.
IF (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of The Super Mario Bros. Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of IF but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jeff Tomsic
Director
1 film together
Notably Tag
Peter Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Green Book
Jay Karas
Director
1 film together
Notably Feeding America Comedy Festival
Peter Segal
Director
1 film together
Notably Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me?
Laura Terruso
Director
1 film together
Notably About My Father
Ray Romano
Director
1 film together
Notably Somewhere in Queens
Aaron Horvath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Jerry Seinfeld
Director
1 film together
Notably Unfrosted
John Krasinski
Director
1 film together
Notably IF
Paul Dugdale
Director
1 film together
Notably Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Peter Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Green BookAaron Horvath
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Super Mario Bros. MovieJohn Krasinski
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IFJeff Tomsic
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TagPeter Segal
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is it Me?Ray Romano
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Somewhere in QueensPaul Dugdale
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't RightLaura Terruso
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
About My FatherJay Karas
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Feeding America Comedy FestivalJerry Seinfeld
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnfrostedSix 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
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spinning Gold
as Giorgio Moroder
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Feeding America Comedy Festival
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
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. Sebastian Maniscalco 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
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
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spinning Gold
as Giorgio Moroder
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
IF
as Magician Mouse (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tag
as Pastor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Green Book
as Johnny Venere
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Spike (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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