Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4665
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Simon Kunz represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 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 Kunz appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Simon. F1 is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 action, drama, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Joseph Kosinski, Clare Niederpruem, Mike Newell and others, Simon Kunz 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.
F1 (2025) as Don Cavendish · Match Point (2005) as Rod Carver · The Parent Trap (1998) as Martin
Career snapshot
Ranked #4665 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1994–2025
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
F1
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
F1
Most frequent director
Mike Newell
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Mike Newell
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.7
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
7.0 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Parent Trap, GoldenEye, Four Weddings and a Funeral — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.0
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. The Parent Trap, GoldenEye, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Most productive era
2010s
5 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 | 6.81 film | 6.72 films | 7.01 film | 7.32 films |
| Action | 7.01 film | 5.41 film | 7.02 films | 7.91 film |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | 6.42 films | 6.82 films | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | 7.02 films | 5.91 film | 6.52 films | 6.41 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Romance | 7.02 films | 6.72 films | 7.01 film | 6.41 film |
| Horror | — | 5.41 film | — | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Four Weddings and a Funeral
Where our catalogue meets this career, as John with the Unfaithful Wife - Wedding One.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025F1
7.9 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
2025The Royal We
The current state of the argument, as Edwin Thewit-Moorland.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Don Cavendish
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
as Martin
Directed by Nancy Meyers
as Rod Carver
Directed by Woody Allen
as John
Directed by Mike Newell
as Matthew Rice
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
Don Cavendish
F1 (2025)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Don Cavendish gives Simon Kunz a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Martin
The Parent Trap (1998)
Performance score7.4
The Parent Trap asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Martin is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Rod Carver
Match Point (2005)
Performance score7.2
Match Point asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rod Carver is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
John
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding (2019)
Performance score6.9
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. John 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 Don Cavendish
Start here. F1 is the clearest statement of what Simon Kunz does — accessible, 156 minutes, and rated 7.9 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.
The Parent Trap (1998)
A deliberate change of key after F1 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Match Point (2005)
Keeps the romance register of The Parent Trap but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Foreigner (2017)
Keeps the thriller register of Match Point but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Foreigner — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Campbell
Director
2 films together
Notably The Foreigner
Mike Newell
Director
2 films together
Notably One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
Nancy Meyers
Director
1 film together
Notably The Parent Trap
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Match Point
Amy Heckerling
Director
1 film together
Notably I Could Never Be Your Woman
Joe Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably Captain America: The First Avenger
Danny Boyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Trance
Christopher Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Get Santa
Clare Niederpruem
Director
1 film together
Notably The Royal We
Joseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together
Notably F1
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Campbell
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The ForeignerMike Newell
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
One Red Nose Day and a WeddingJoseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
F1Woody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Match PointNancy Meyers
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Parent TrapJoe Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captain America: The First AvengerDanny Boyle
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TranceClare Niederpruem
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Royal WeChristopher Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Get SantaAmy Heckerling
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Could Never Be Your WomanSix 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
F1
as Don Cavendish
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Match Point
as Rod Carver
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
F1
as Don Cavendish
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Captain America: The First Avenger
as 4F Doctor
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
F1
as Don Cavendish
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 Kunz 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
31 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in drama, 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
F1
as Don Cavendish
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Foreigner
as Matthew Rice
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
as John
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Trance
as Surgeon
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
F1
as Don Cavendish
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Captain America: The First Avenger
as 4F Doctor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
as John
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
GoldenEye
as Severnaya Duty Officer
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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