Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13299
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Simon Jones represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Simon is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Simon Jones appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Simon. Twelve Monkeys is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, documentary, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Garth Jennings, Alan J. Pakula, Danny DeVito and others, Simon Jones 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.
Twelve Monkeys (1995) as Zoologist · Brazil (1985) as Arrest Official · Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) as Cedric
Career snapshot
Ranked #13299 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1983–2021
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Twelve Monkeys
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Brazil
Most frequent director
Terry Gilliam
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Terry Gilliam
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.6
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
1980s
7.4 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Brazil, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.4
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.5
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. Brazil, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.52 films | 7.11 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.02 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.42 films | 7.21 film | 6.92 films | 0.01 film |
| Crime | — | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 7.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1983Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cedric.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1995Twelve Monkeys
7.7 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
2021Monty Python's Best Bits Celebrated
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.
9 of 9 films
as Zoologist
Directed by Terry Gilliam
as Arrest Official
Directed by Terry Gilliam
as Shellhammer (uncredited)
Directed by Danny DeVito
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
Zoologist
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Zoologist gives Simon Jones a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Arrest Official
Brazil (1985)
Performance score7.4
Brazil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arrest Official is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Cedric
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Performance score7.2
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cedric is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Shellhammer (uncredited)
Matilda (1996)
Performance score7.1
Matilda asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shellhammer (uncredited) 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 Zoologist
Start here. Twelve Monkeys is the clearest statement of what Simon Jones does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Simon 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.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
A deliberate change of key after Twelve Monkeys — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Brazil (1985)
Keeps the comedy register of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life but asks for a colder reading of it.
Matilda (1996)
Keeps the comedy register of Brazil but asks for a colder reading of it.
Griffin & Phoenix (2006)
Keeps the comedy register of Matilda but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Terry Gilliam
Director
2 films together
Notably Twelve Monkeys
Terry Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Les Mayfield
Director
1 film together
Notably Miracle on 34th Street
Danny DeVito
Director
1 film together
Notably Matilda
Alan J. Pakula
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devil's Own
Garth Jennings
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Terry Gilliam
Director
2 films together · 7.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Twelve MonkeysTerry Jones
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Monty Python's The Meaning of LifeDanny DeVito
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MatildaLes Mayfield
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miracle on 34th StreetGarth Jennings
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyAlan J. Pakula
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 Devil's OwnSix 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
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Miracle on 34th Street
as Donald Shellhammer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Matilda
as Shellhammer (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
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. Simon Jones 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
38 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
6 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
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Miracle on 34th Street
as Donald Shellhammer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
as Ghostly Image
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Griffin & Phoenix
as Professor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Twelve Monkeys
as Zoologist
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
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