Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14763
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tim Steed 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.
Tim Steed appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. The Imitation Game is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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, history, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James Hawes, Craig Roberts, Craig Gillespie and others, Tim Steed 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.
The Imitation Game (2014) as Electrical Assistant · Cruella (2021) as Frederick · One Life (2023) as Bernard
Career snapshot
Ranked #14763 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2014–2023
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
The Imitation Game
Average Nutevio score
7.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Imitation Game
Most frequent director
James Hawes
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James Hawes
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
2020s
7.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. One Life, The Phantom of the Open, Cruella — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Brexit: The Uncivil War, The Current War, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.14 films | 7.63 films |
| Action | 7.01 film | — |
| Thriller | 8.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 7.42 films |
| Crime | — | 8.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Electrical Assistant. 8.2 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
2023One Life
The current state of the argument, as Bernard.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Electrical Assistant
Directed by Morten Tyldum
as Frederick
Directed by Craig Gillespie
as Bernard
Directed by James Hawes
as Holdo's First Officer
Directed by Rian Johnson
as Sergeant
Directed by Armando Iannucci
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
Electrical Assistant
The Imitation Game (2014)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Electrical Assistant gives Tim Steed a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Frederick
Cruella (2021)
Performance score7.8
Cruella asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frederick is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bernard
One Life (2023)
Performance score7.6
One Life asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bernard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Holdo's First Officer
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Performance score6.9
Star Wars: The Last Jedi asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Holdo's First Officer 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 Electrical Assistant
Start here. The Imitation Game is the clearest statement of what Tim Steed does — accessible, 113 minutes, and rated 8.2 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.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
A deliberate change of key after The Imitation Game — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Death of Stalin (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Star Wars: The Last Jedi — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cruella (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of The Death of Stalin but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Life (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Cruella but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Morten Tyldum
Director
1 film together
Notably The Imitation Game
Armando Iannucci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Death of Stalin
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Current War
Toby Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably Brexit: The Uncivil War
Craig Gillespie
Director
1 film together
Notably Cruella
Craig Roberts
Director
1 film together
Notably The Phantom of the Open
James Hawes
Director
1 film together
Notably One Life
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Morten Tyldum
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Imitation GameCraig Gillespie
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CruellaJames Hawes
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One LifeRian Johnson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Last JediArmando Iannucci
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 Death of StalinCraig Roberts
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Phantom of the OpenAlfonso Gomez-Rejon
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 Current WarToby Haynes
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brexit: The Uncivil WarSix 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
Cruella
as Frederick
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
One Life
as Bernard
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Imitation Game
as Electrical Assistant
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Cruella
as Frederick
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Imitation Game
as Electrical Assistant
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 Steed 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
7 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
The Imitation Game
as Electrical Assistant
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cruella
as Frederick
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One Life
as Bernard
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Cruella
as Frederick
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Holdo's First Officer
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Holdo's First Officer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Death of Stalin
as Sergeant
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Holdo's First Officer
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: drama and history
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Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
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Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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