Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8571
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Keir O'Donnell 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.
Keir O'Donnell appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Keir. Gifted is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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, horror, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Bay, Marc Webb, Brad Peyton and others, Keir O'Donnell 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.
Gifted (2017) as Bradley Pollard · American Sniper (2014) as Jeff Kyle · Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) as Finney
Career snapshot
Ranked #8571 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2005–2025
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Gifted
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Gifted
Most frequent director
Michael Bay
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Bay
Most common genre
Comedy
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.4
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
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. I'm Just F*cking with You, Gifted, Incarnate — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.5
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. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Amusement, After Sex.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.91 film | 7.14 films | 6.71 film |
| Action | 5.71 film | 7.52 films | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.44 films | 6.82 films |
| Comedy | 6.14 films | 6.64 films | 6.01 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.82 films |
| Romance | 6.23 films | 6.02 films | — |
| Horror | 6.01 film | 5.92 films | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Wedding Crashers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Todd Cleary.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2017Gifted
8.0 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
2025Coyotes
The current state of the argument, as Devon.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Jeff Kyle
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Finney
Directed by Matt Reeves
as FBI Agent Anson Clark
Directed by Michael Bay
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
Bradley Pollard
Gifted (2017)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bradley Pollard gives Keir O'Donnell a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jeff Kyle
American Sniper (2014)
Performance score7.4
American Sniper asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jeff Kyle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Finney
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Performance score7.3
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Finney is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Greg Raco
The Dry (2021)
Performance score7.2
The Dry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Greg Raco 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 Bradley Pollard
Start here. Gifted is the clearest statement of what Keir O'Donnell does — accessible, 101 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Keir 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.
American Sniper (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Gifted — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Keeps the action register of American Sniper but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Dry (2021)
Keeps the thriller register of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ambulance (2022)
Keeps the crime register of The Dry but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Dobkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Wedding Crashers
Peyton Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably The Break-Up
Eric Amadio
Director
1 film together
Notably After Sex
John Simpson
Director
1 film together
Notably Amusement
Mark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably When in Rome
Floria Sigismondi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Runaways
Kat Coiro
Director
1 film together
Notably A Case of You
Matt Reeves
Director
1 film together
Notably Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably American Sniper
Brad Peyton
Director
1 film together
Notably Incarnate
Marc Webb
Director
1 film together
Notably Gifted
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Ambulance
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Marc Webb
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GiftedClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American SniperMatt Reeves
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dawn of the Planet of the ApesMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AmbulanceDavid Dobkin
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wedding CrashersFloria Sigismondi
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 RunawaysMark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When in RomePeyton Reed
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Break-UpKat Coiro
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Case of YouJohn Simpson
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AmusementEric Amadio
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
After SexBrad Peyton
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IncarnateSix 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
Gifted
as Bradley Pollard
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Runaways
as Rodney Bingenheimer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gifted
as Bradley Pollard
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Runaways
as Rodney Bingenheimer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gifted
as Bradley Pollard
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. Keir O'Donnell 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
20 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
9 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
Gifted
as Bradley Pollard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
as Finney
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Runaways
as Rodney Bingenheimer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Dry
as Greg Raco
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
as Finney
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
as Veck
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gifted
as Bradley Pollard
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Coyotes
as Devon
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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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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