Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#30026
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Waymond Lee 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.
Waymond Lee appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Waymond. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Kwan, David Leitch, Chris Kelly and others, Waymond Lee 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.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited) · Bullet Train (2022) as Passenger (uncredited) · Other People (2016) as Bar Fly
Career snapshot
Ranked #30026 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2009–2022
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Most frequent director
Daniel Kwan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Kwan
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.3
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
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Everything Everywhere All at Once, Bullet Train, Always and Forever — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
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. Post Grad.
Most productive era
2020s
3 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 | 5.01 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Action | — | — | 7.62 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | 5.01 film | 6.41 film | 7.41 film |
| Romance | 5.01 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009Post Grad
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Commencement Grad / Guest (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022Everything Everywhere All at Once
7.8 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
2022Bullet Train
The current state of the argument, as Passenger (uncredited).
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.
5 of 5 films
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
Directed by Daniel Kwan
as Passenger (uncredited)
Directed by David Leitch
as Bar Fly
Directed by Chris Kelly
as Commencement Grad / Guest (uncredited)
Directed by Vicky Jenson
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
Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited) gives Waymond Lee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Passenger (uncredited)
Bullet Train (2022)
Performance score7.2
Bullet Train asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Passenger (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jury Foreman
Always and Forever (2020)
Performance score6.5
Always and Forever asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jury Foreman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bar Fly
Other People (2016)
Performance score6.5
Other People asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bar Fly 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 Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
Start here. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the clearest statement of what Waymond Lee does — accessible, 140 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Waymond 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.
Post Grad (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Everything Everywhere All at Once — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Other People (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of Post Grad but asks for a colder reading of it.
Always and Forever (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Other People — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Bullet Train (2022)
Keeps the thriller register of Always and Forever but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Vicky Jenson
Director
1 film together
Notably Post Grad
Chris Kelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Other People
David Leitch
Director
1 film together
Notably Bullet Train
Daniel Kwan
Director
1 film together
Notably Everything Everywhere All at Once
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Daniel Kwan
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Everything Everywhere All at OnceDavid Leitch
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bullet TrainChris Kelly
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Other PeopleVicky Jenson
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Post GradSix 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
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (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
Post Grad
as Commencement Grad / Guest (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bullet Train
as Passenger (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (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. Waymond Lee 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Bullet Train
as Passenger (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Post Grad
as Commencement Grad / Guest (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Always and Forever
as Jury Foreman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Post Grad
as Commencement Grad / Guest (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Everything Everywhere All at Once
as Chinese Choir / Movie Producer (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy 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
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Waymond Lee performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
