Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#51168
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
William Youmans works on quiet performance 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.
William Youmans appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without William. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, screen presence, rewatchability. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alan Taylor, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Stephen Daldry, William Youmans 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.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) as Bartender (Tommy) · Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) as Bartender · The Many Saints of Newark (2021) as Judge Lambert
Career snapshot
Ranked #51168 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2011–2021
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Most frequent director
Alan Taylor
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alan Taylor
Most common genre
Drama
3 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
6.8
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
2010s
7.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.2
Across 2 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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
Most productive era
2010s
2 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 | 7.22 films | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | 7.41 film | — |
| Crime | — | 6.31 film |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Bartender.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
7.4 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 Judge Lambert.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Bartender (Tommy)
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
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
Bartender (Tommy)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bartender (Tommy) gives William Youmans a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bartender
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Performance score6.9
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bartender is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Judge Lambert
The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
Performance score6.5
The Many Saints of Newark asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judge Lambert is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Robert
Ten Minutes to Midnight (2020)
Performance score6.5
Ten Minutes to Midnight asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robert 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 Bartender (Tommy)
Start here. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is the clearest statement of what William Youmans does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet William 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.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Keeps the drama register of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ten Minutes to Midnight (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Ten Minutes to Midnight — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)Stephen Daldry
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Extremely Loud & Incredibly CloseAlan Taylor
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 Many Saints of NewarkSix 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
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
as Bartender
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Many Saints of Newark
as Judge Lambert
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
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. William Youmans 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
3 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
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
as Bartender
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Many Saints of Newark
as Judge Lambert
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
as Bartender (Tommy)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
as Bartender
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Many Saints of Newark
as Judge Lambert
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ten Minutes to Midnight
as Robert
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
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Reference
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