Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4849
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor 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 Vaughan-Lawlor appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tom. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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, adventure, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Thea Sharrock, Sam Miller, Anthony Russo and others, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor 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.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) as Ebony Maw · Avengers: Infinity War (2018) as Ebony Maw · Becoming Jane (2007) as Robert Fowle
Career snapshot
Ranked #4849 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2007–2024
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Avengers: Endgame
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Avengers: Endgame
Most frequent director
Anthony Russo
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Anthony Russo
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
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
6.7
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
2000s
7.3 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Becoming Jane — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.3
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. Becoming Jane.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.31 film | 6.53 films | 6.33 films |
| Action | — | 8.52 films | 5.41 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.71 film | 5.41 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.82 films |
| Crime | — | 6.71 film | — |
| Romance | 7.31 film | 7.21 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007Becoming Jane
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Robert Fowle.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.5 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
The current state of the argument, as Kevin.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Ebony Maw
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Ebony Maw
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Robert Fowle
Directed by Julian Jarrold
as Patrick O'Connor
Directed by Sam Miller
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
Ebony Maw
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ebony Maw gives Tom Vaughan-Lawlor a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ebony Maw
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Performance score8.2
Avengers: Infinity War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ebony Maw is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Robert Fowle
Becoming Jane (2007)
Performance score7.2
Becoming Jane asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robert Fowle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
McCabe
The Secret Scripture (2017)
Performance score7.1
The Secret Scripture asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. McCabe 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 Ebony Maw
Start here. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest statement of what Tom Vaughan-Lawlor does — accessible, 181 minutes, and rated 8.5 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.
Becoming Jane (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Avengers: Endgame — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Secret Scripture (2017)
Keeps the romance register of Becoming Jane but asks for a colder reading of it.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
A deliberate change of key after The Secret Scripture — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Danny Boy (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Avengers: Infinity War — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Anthony Russo
Director
2 films together
Notably Avengers: Endgame
Julian Jarrold
Director
1 film together
Notably Becoming Jane
Jim Sheridan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Secret Scripture
Sam Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Danny Boy
Thea Sharrock
Director
1 film together
Notably The Beautiful Game
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Anthony Russo
Director
2 films together · 8.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Avengers: EndgameJulian Jarrold
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Becoming JaneJim Sheridan
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Secret ScriptureSam Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Danny BoyThea Sharrock
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Beautiful GameSix 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
Avengers: Infinity War
as Ebony Maw
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Becoming Jane
as Robert Fowle
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Avengers: Infinity War
as Ebony Maw
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
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 Vaughan-Lawlor 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
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Avengers: Infinity War
as Ebony Maw
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Secret Scripture
as McCabe
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Infiltrator
as Steve Cook
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Becoming Jane
as Robert Fowle
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Avengers: Endgame
as Ebony Maw
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Cillian Murphy
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Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Edward Norton
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Have your say
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Reference
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