Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3506
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Adrian Hough 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.
Adrian Hough appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Adrian. Rise of the Planet of the Apes 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 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 horror, mystery, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Patrick Brice, Terry Ingram, Walter Hill and others, Adrian Hough 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.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) as Board Member #2 · Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man (2019) as Paul Adams · Charlie St. Cloud (2010) as Ben Carroll
Career snapshot
Ranked #3506 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Most frequent director
Patrick Brice
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Patrick Brice
Most common genre
Action
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man, The Assignment, Rise of the Planet of the Apes — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 4 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
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Jennifer's Body, Battle in Seattle, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 6.31 film | 7.22 films | — |
| Action | 6.53 films | 6.52 films | 5.41 film |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | 6.52 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.32 films | — |
| Romance | — | 7.01 film | — |
| Horror | 6.01 film | — | 5.52 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mr. Grey.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2011Rise of the Planet of the Apes
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
2025Shadow of God
The current state of the argument, as Beau.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Board Member #2
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
as Paul Adams
Directed by Terry Ingram
as Pilot
Directed by Len Wiseman
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
Board Member #2
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Board Member #2 gives Adrian Hough a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Paul Adams
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man (2019)
Performance score7.0
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paul Adams is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ben Carroll
Charlie St. Cloud (2010)
Performance score6.9
Charlie St. Cloud asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben Carroll is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pilot
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Performance score6.6
Underworld: Evolution asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pilot 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 Board Member #2
Start here. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the clearest statement of what Adrian Hough does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Adrian 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.
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
Keeps the action register of Rise of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Charlie St. Cloud (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Underworld: Evolution — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Charlie St. Cloud — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Shadow of God (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together
Notably Underworld: Evolution
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably X-Men: The Last Stand
Stuart Townsend
Director
1 film together
Notably Battle in Seattle
Karyn Kusama
Director
1 film together
Notably Jennifer's Body
Burr Steers
Director
1 film together
Notably Charlie St. Cloud
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together
Notably Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably The Assignment
Terry Ingram
Director
1 film together
Notably Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man
Patrick Brice
Director
1 film together
Notably There's Someone Inside Your House
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rise of the Planet of the ApesTerry Ingram
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong ManBurr Steers
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Charlie St. CloudLen Wiseman
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Underworld: EvolutionBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
X-Men: The Last StandStuart Townsend
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Battle in SeattleKaryn Kusama
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jennifer's BodyWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AssignmentPatrick Brice
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
There's Someone Inside Your HouseSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
0 wins · 1 nomination
No wins yet · 1 nomination
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Charlie St. Cloud
as Ben Carroll
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
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. Adrian Hough 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
6 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
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man
as Paul Adams
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Charlie St. Cloud
as Ben Carroll
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Chronicle Mysteries: The Wrong Man
as Paul Adams
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
as Board Member #2
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
X-Men: The Last Stand
as Mr. Grey
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Charlie St. Cloud
as Ben Carroll
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
X-Men: The Last Stand
as Mr. Grey
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
Which Adrian Hough performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
