Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2768
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tom Kane 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.
Tom Kane appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tom. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 comedy, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Natasha Lyonne, Ken Cunningham, Rian Johnson and others, Tom Kane 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.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) as Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited) · The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010) as Yoda (voice) · Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001) as Professor Kaufman (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2768 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1998–2020
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
Most frequent director
Patrick Lussier
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Patrick Lussier
Most common genre
Adventure
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 26m
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
6.5
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
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Christmas Chronicles, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Force Awakens — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.2
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. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | — | 6.74 films | 7.33 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.21 film | 6.42 films | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.84 films | 7.32 films | 6.02 films |
| Horror | 6.21 film | 5.52 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Voice Over (Voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2010The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
7.5 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
2020LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special
The current state of the argument, as Qui-Gon Jinn / Yoda (voice).
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.
16 of 16 films
as Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
as Yoda (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Professor Kaufman (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as The Narrator
Directed by Unknown
as Darwin (voice)
Directed by Jeff McGrath
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
Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited) gives Tom Kane a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yoda (voice)
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010)
Performance score7.3
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yoda (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Professor Kaufman (voice)
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001)
Performance score7.2
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Professor Kaufman (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Narrator
The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Performance score7.1
The Christmas Chronicles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Narrator 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 Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
Start here. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the clearest statement of what Tom Kane does — accessible, 136 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tom 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.
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001)
Keeps the adventure register of Star Wars: The Force Awakens but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)
Keeps the comedy register of Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of The Wild Thornberrys Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Same director as The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Patrick Lussier
Director
2 films together
Notably The Prophecy 3: The Ascent
Steve Miner
Director
1 film together
Notably Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Craig McCracken
Director
1 film together
Notably The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Jeff McGrath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wild Thornberrys Movie
Steve Loter
Director
1 film together
Notably Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time
Chris Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Shrek the Third
Dave Filoni
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Clone Wars
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Ken Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special
Natasha Lyonne
Director
1 film together
Notably Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Patrick Lussier
Director
2 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Prophecy 3: The AscentJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Force AwakensRian 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 JediCraig McCracken
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 Powerpuff Girls MovieSteve Loter
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kim Possible: A Sitch in TimeKen Cunningham
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LEGO Star Wars Holiday SpecialChris Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shrek the ThirdJeff McGrath
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wild Thornberrys MovieDave Filoni
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Clone WarsSteve Miner
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Halloween H20: 20 Years LaterNatasha Lyonne
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sarah Cooper: Everything's FineSix 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
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
as Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Shrek the Third
as Guard #1 (voice)
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 Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Yoda (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
as Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
as Hosnian Citizen / Starkiller Technician (voice) (uncredited)
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. Tom Kane 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
22 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in adventure, 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 Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Yoda (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Yoda (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Shrek the Third
as Guard #1 (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Prophecy 3: The Ascent
as Angel (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Yoda (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Admiral Ackbar (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Yoda (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
as Admiral Ackbar (voice)
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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