Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3282
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Louis C.K. 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.
Louis C.K. appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Louis. Trumbo 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, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Louis C.K., Chris Renaud, Jay Roach and others, Louis C.K. 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.
Trumbo (2015) as Arlen Hird · Blue Jasmine (2013) as Al · American Hustle (2013) as Stoddard Thorsen
Career snapshot
Ranked #3282 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2005–2026
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Trumbo
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Trumbo
Most frequent director
Louis C.K.
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Louis C.K.
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Secret Life of Pets, Trumbo, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. The Invention of Lying, Role Models, London.
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 | 6.01 film | 6.74 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.32 films | 5.92 films | 6.11 film |
| Crime | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Romance | 6.12 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005London
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Therapist.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Trumbo
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 Self.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Stoddard Thorsen
Directed by David O. Russell
as Max (voice)
Directed by Chris Renaud
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
Arlen Hird
Trumbo (2015)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Arlen Hird gives Louis C.K. a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Stoddard Thorsen
American Hustle (2013)
Performance score7.1
American Hustle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stoddard Thorsen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Max (voice)
The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
Performance score7.0
The Secret Life of Pets asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Max (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Al
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Performance score6.9
Blue Jasmine asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Al 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 Arlen Hird
Start here. Trumbo is the clearest statement of what Louis C.K. does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Louis 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 Hustle (2013)
Keeps the drama register of Trumbo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Blue Jasmine (2013)
Keeps the drama register of American Hustle but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Secret Life of Pets (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Blue Jasmine — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Louis C.K.: Ridiculous (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of The Secret Life of Pets but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably Role Models
Ricky Gervais
Director
1 film together
Notably The Invention of Lying
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Blue Jasmine
David O. Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably American Hustle
Phil Alden Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Trumbo
Chris Renaud
Director
1 film together
Notably The Secret Life of Pets
Louis C.K.
Director
1 film together
Notably Louis C.K.: Ridiculous
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TrumboWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blue JasmineDavid O. Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American HustleDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Role ModelsChris Renaud
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 Secret Life of PetsRicky Gervais
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Invention of LyingLouis C.K.
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Louis C.K.: RidiculousPhil Alden Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Angriest Man in BrooklynSix 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
Trumbo
as Arlen Hird
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
London
as Therapist
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Trumbo
as Arlen Hird
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Role Models
as Security Guard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Trumbo
as Arlen Hird
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. Louis C.K. 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
21 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
5 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
Trumbo
as Arlen Hird
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
American Hustle
as Stoddard Thorsen
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
London
as Therapist
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
American Hustle
as Stoddard Thorsen
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Trumbo
as Arlen Hird
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Secret Life of Pets
as Max (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Secret Life of Pets
as Max (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
American Hustle
as Stoddard Thorsen
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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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Harvey Keitel
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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