Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9470
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tim Pigott-Smith represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Tim is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tim Pigott-Smith appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. V for Vendetta is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 action, science fiction, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Lilly Wachowski, Dean Parisot, Tim Burton and others, Tim Pigott-Smith 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.
V for Vendetta (2006) as Creedy · Gangs of New York (2002) as Calvinist Minister · The Remains of the Day (1993) as Thomas Benn
Career snapshot
Ranked #9470 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1981–2015
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
V for Vendetta
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
V for Vendetta
Most frequent director
Lilly Wachowski
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Lilly Wachowski
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 12m
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
7.4 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Remains of the Day — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.4
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. Escape to Victory.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 7.41 film | 6.73 films | — |
| Action | — | — | 6.93 films | 6.02 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.22 films | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Crime | — | — | 7.41 film | 6.51 film |
| Romance | — | 7.41 film | 6.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Rose.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006V for Vendetta
8.1 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
The current state of the argument, as Malidictes.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Creedy
Directed by James McTeigue
as Calvinist Minister
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Lord Ascot
Directed by Tim Burton
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
Creedy
V for Vendetta (2006)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Creedy gives Tim Pigott-Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Calvinist Minister
Gangs of New York (2002)
Performance score7.2
Gangs of New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Calvinist Minister is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Thomas Benn
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Performance score7.2
The Remains of the Day asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thomas Benn is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Rose
Escape to Victory (1981)
Performance score7.0
Escape to Victory asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rose 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 Creedy
Start here. V for Vendetta is the clearest statement of what Tim Pigott-Smith does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tim 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.
Escape to Victory (1981)
A deliberate change of key after V for Vendetta — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Keeps the drama register of Escape to Victory but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Keeps the drama register of The Remains of the Day but asks for a colder reading of it.
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Gangs of New York — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Huston
Director
1 film together
Notably Escape to Victory
James Ivory
Director
1 film together
Notably The Remains of the Day
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably Gangs of New York
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Alexander
Tony Bill
Director
1 film together
Notably Flyboys
James McTeigue
Director
1 film together
Notably V for Vendetta
Marc Forster
Director
1 film together
Notably Quantum of Solace
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice in Wonderland
Dean Parisot
Director
1 film together
Notably RED 2
Lilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together
Notably Jupiter Ascending
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James McTeigue
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
V for VendettaMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gangs of New YorkJames Ivory
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Remains of the DayJohn Huston
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Escape to VictoryTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice in WonderlandTony Bill
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FlyboysDean Parisot
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RED 2Marc Forster
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Quantum of SolaceOliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AlexanderLilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jupiter AscendingSix 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
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Remains of the Day
as Thomas Benn
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Alexander
as Omen Reader
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
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. Tim Pigott-Smith 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
34 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in action, 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
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Alexander
as Omen Reader
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alice in Wonderland
as Lord Ascot
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
V for Vendetta
as Creedy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Quantum of Solace
as Foreign Secretary
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gangs of New York
as Calvinist Minister
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Alexander
as Omen Reader
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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