Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16878
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Robert Pugh represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 41 years in, and Robert is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robert Pugh appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. Colette is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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 drama, comedy, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mali Harries, Craig Roberts, Wash Westmoreland and others, Robert Pugh 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.
Colette (2018) as Jules · The Ghost Writer (2010) as Richard Rycart · Robin Hood (2010) as Baron Baldwin
Career snapshot
Ranked #16878 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1981–2022
Career length
41 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Colette
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
Colette
Most frequent director
Mali Harries
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Mali Harries
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.5
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. Colette, The Ghost Writer, Robin Hood — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Superman III, Nighthawks.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.31 film | 6.72 films | 3.12 films |
| Action | 6.12 films | 5.61 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | 6.31 film | 6.81 film | — |
| Comedy | 5.81 film | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Crime | 6.41 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1981Nighthawks
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kenna.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Colette
6.9 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
2022Small Change
The current state of the argument, as Gramps.
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 Jules
Directed by Wash Westmoreland
as Richard Rycart
Directed by Roman Polanski
as Dennis
Directed by Craig Roberts
as Baron Baldwin
Directed by Ridley Scott
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Jules
Colette (2018)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jules gives Robert Pugh a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Richard Rycart
The Ghost Writer (2010)
Performance score6.7
The Ghost Writer asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Richard Rycart is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Gramps
Small Change (2022)
Performance score6.5
Small Change asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gramps is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dennis
Eternal Beauty (2020)
Performance score6.5
Eternal Beauty asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dennis 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 Jules
Start here. Colette is the clearest statement of what Robert Pugh does — accessible, 112 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robert 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.
The Ghost Writer (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Colette — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Robin Hood (2010)
A deliberate change of key after The Ghost Writer — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Eternal Beauty (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Robin Hood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Small Change (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Eternal Beauty but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bruce Malmuth
Director
1 film together
Notably Nighthawks
Richard Lester
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman III
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Enigma
Doug Lefler
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Legion
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Robin Hood
Roman Polanski
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ghost Writer
Wash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together
Notably Colette
Craig Roberts
Director
1 film together
Notably Eternal Beauty
Mali Harries
Director
1 film together
Notably Small Change
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Wash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ColetteRoman Polanski
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ghost WriterRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Robin HoodBruce Malmuth
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NighthawksMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EnigmaCraig Roberts
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eternal BeautyRichard Lester
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superman IIIDoug Lefler
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 Last LegionMali Harries
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Small ChangeSix 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
The Ghost Writer
as Richard Rycart
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Colette
as Jules
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Colette
as Jules
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Nighthawks
as Kenna
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Colette
as Jules
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. Robert Pugh 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
41 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 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
The Ghost Writer
as Richard Rycart
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Ghost Writer
as Richard Rycart
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Colette
as Jules
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Ghost Writer
as Richard Rycart
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Robin Hood
as Baron Baldwin
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Robin Hood
as Baron Baldwin
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Robin Hood
as Baron Baldwin
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superman III
as Junkyard Worker (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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