Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#37403
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Stark Sands 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.
Stark Sands appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Stark. Inside Llewyn Davis is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, history, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Steven Spielberg, Joel Coen, Clint Eastwood and others, Stark Sands 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.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) as Troy Nelson · The Post (2017) as Don Graham · My Sassy Girl (2008) as Soldier
Career snapshot
Ranked #37403 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2004–2017
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Inside Llewyn Davis
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Inside Llewyn Davis
Most frequent director
Steven Spielberg
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Steven Spielberg
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.4
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
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Post, Inside Llewyn Davis — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
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. My Sassy Girl, Flags of Our Fathers, Shall We Dance?.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.62 films | 7.12 films |
| Action | 5.61 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.62 films | — |
| Romance | 6.62 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Shall We Dance?
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Evan Clark.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.2 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
2017The Post
The current state of the argument, as Don Graham.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Don Graham
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Soldier
Directed by Unknown
as Evan Clark
Directed by Unknown
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
Troy Nelson
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Troy Nelson gives Stark Sands a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Don Graham
The Post (2017)
Performance score6.9
The Post asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Don Graham is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Soldier
My Sassy Girl (2008)
Performance score6.7
My Sassy Girl asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Soldier is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gust
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Performance score6.7
Flags of Our Fathers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gust 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 Troy Nelson
Start here. Inside Llewyn Davis is the clearest statement of what Stark Sands does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Stark 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.
Shall We Dance? (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Inside Llewyn Davis but asks for a colder reading of it.
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Keeps the drama register of Shall We Dance? but asks for a colder reading of it.
My Sassy Girl (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Flags of Our Fathers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Post (2017)
A deliberate change of key after My Sassy Girl — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside Llewyn Davis
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PostClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Flags of Our FathersBart Freundlich
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Catch That KidSix 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
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Flags of Our Fathers
as Gust
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
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. Stark Sands 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Post
as Don Graham
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Troy Nelson
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Catch That Kid
as Brad
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shall We Dance?
as Evan Clark
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Catch That Kid
as Brad
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Henry Thomas
Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
Drew Barrymore
Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
Robert MacNaughton
Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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