Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8212
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Wiley M. Pickett 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.
Wiley M. Pickett appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Wiley. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Max Joseph, Michael Bay, Shane Black and others, Wiley M. Pickett 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.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) as Homicide Cop · Transformers (2007) as FBI Agent · We Are Your Friends (2015) as Carl
Career snapshot
Ranked #8212 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1998–2015
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Most frequent director
Max Joseph
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Max Joseph
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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
6.4
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. We Are Your Friends — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Mighty Joe Young.
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.32 films | 6.81 film |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.54 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.82 films | 6.81 film |
| Crime | — | 6.63 films | — |
| Romance | — | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Mighty Joe Young
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Police Sharpshooter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.2 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
The current state of the argument, as Carl.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Homicide Cop
Directed by Shane Black
as FBI Agent
Directed by Michael Bay
as Carl
Directed by Max Joseph
as 1st Killer
Directed by Unknown
as Police Officer
Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
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
Homicide Cop
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Homicide Cop gives Wiley M. Pickett a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
FBI Agent
Transformers (2007)
Performance score6.9
Transformers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. FBI Agent is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Carl
We Are Your Friends (2015)
Performance score6.7
We Are Your Friends asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carl is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
1st Killer
Shoot 'Em Up (2007)
Performance score6.5
Shoot 'Em Up asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. 1st Killer 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 Homicide Cop
Start here. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the clearest statement of what Wiley M. Pickett does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Wiley 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.
Cradle 2 the Grave (2003)
Keeps the crime register of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but asks for a colder reading of it.
Transformers (2007)
Keeps the action register of Cradle 2 the Grave but asks for a colder reading of it.
Shoot 'Em Up (2007)
Keeps the action register of Transformers but asks for a colder reading of it.
We Are Your Friends (2015)
Keeps the comedy register of Shoot 'Em Up but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ron Underwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Mighty Joe Young
Wolfgang Petersen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Perfect Storm
Andrzej Bartkowiak
Director
1 film together
Notably Cradle 2 the Grave
Shane Black
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers
Max Joseph
Director
1 film together
Notably We Are Your Friends
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Shane Black
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss Kiss Bang BangMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TransformersMax Joseph
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
We Are Your FriendsWolfgang Petersen
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 Perfect StormRon Underwood
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mighty Joe YoungAndrzej Bartkowiak
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cradle 2 the GraveSix 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
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
We Are Your Friends
as Carl
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers
as FBI Agent
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
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. Wiley M. Pickett 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.
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
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
We Are Your Friends
as Carl
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Homicide Cop
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Transformers
as FBI Agent
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers
as FBI Agent
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
We Are Your Friends
as Carl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Transformers
as FBI Agent
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
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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