Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12446
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Simon Rex 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.
Simon Rex appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Simon. More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 drama, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Stephanie Laing, Tony Tost, Jon S. Baird and others, Simon Rex 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.
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021) as Self · Blink Twice (2024) as Cody · Tow (2026) as Cliff
Career snapshot
Ranked #12446 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2003–2026
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
Most frequent director
David Zucker
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Zucker
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
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
5.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Superhero Movie, Rise: Blood Hunter, Scary Movie 4 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
5.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
5.5
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. Superhero Movie, Rise: Blood Hunter, Scary Movie 4.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | — | — | 4.54 films |
| Action | 5.32 films | — | 6.41 film |
| Thriller | 5.31 film | — | 3.42 films |
| Comedy | 5.63 films | 3.81 film | 6.07 films |
| Crime | — | — | 4.23 films |
| Horror | 5.31 film | 3.81 film | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Scary Movie 3
Where our catalogue meets this career, as George.
Highest rated performance
2021More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026The Leader
The current state of the argument, as David.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Danny
Directed by Unknown
as Cody
Directed by Zoë Kravitz
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
Danny
Operation Taco Gary's (2026)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Danny gives Simon Rex a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lawrence
The Sweet East (2023)
Performance score7.0
The Sweet East asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lawrence is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)
Performance score7.0
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story 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
Cody
Blink Twice (2024)
Performance score6.9
Blink Twice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cody 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 Danny
Start here. Operation Taco Gary's is the clearest statement of what Simon Rex does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 6.4 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.
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)
Same director as Operation Taco Gary's, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Sweet East (2023)
Same director as More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Blink Twice (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Sweet East — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tow (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Blink Twice — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Zucker
Director
2 films together
Notably Scary Movie 3
Craig Mazin
Director
1 film together
Notably Superhero Movie
Katie Aselton
Director
1 film together
Notably Mack & Rita
Rightor Doyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Down Low
Potsy Ponciroli
Director
1 film together
Notably Greedy People
Zoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Blink Twice
Jon S. Baird
Director
1 film together
Notably Everything's Going to Be Great
Tony Tost
Director
1 film together
Notably Americana
Stephanie Laing
Director
1 film together
Notably Tow
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Zucker
Director
2 films together · 5.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Scary Movie 3Zoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blink TwiceStephanie Laing
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TowPotsy Ponciroli
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Greedy PeopleTony Tost
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AmericanaJon S. Baird
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Everything's Going to Be GreatKatie Aselton
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mack & RitaRightor Doyle
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Down LowCraig Mazin
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superhero MovieSix 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
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tow
as Cliff
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rise: Blood Hunter
as Hank
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Operation Taco Gary's
as Danny
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 Rex 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
23 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
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
Blink Twice
as Cody
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Blink Twice
as Cody
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tow
as Cliff
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Blink Twice
as Cody
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Operation Taco Gary's
as Danny
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rise: Blood Hunter
as Hank
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Americana
as Roy Lee Dean
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Drone
as Jeffries
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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Reference
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