Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16706
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Al Madrigal 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.
Al Madrigal appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Al. Air is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 mystery, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ben Affleck, Daniel Espinosa, Debra Neil-Fisher and others, Al Madrigal 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.
Air (2023) as Tim · The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021) as Mr. Pepper · Violet (2021) as Darren Brightly
Career snapshot
Ranked #16706 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2018–2024
Career length
6 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Air
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Air
Most frequent director
Ben Affleck
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ben Affleck
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
6.1
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
2020s
6.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Drugstore June, Air, Morbius — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.2
Across 10 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.2
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. Night School.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | — | 6.93 films |
| Action | — | 5.91 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | 5.75 films |
| Crime | — | 5.71 film |
| Romance | — | 6.53 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Night School
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Luis.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Air
7.3 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
2024Drugstore June
The current state of the argument, as Detective David Foltz.
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 Darren Brightly
Directed by Justine Bateman
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
Tim
Air (2023)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tim gives Al Madrigal a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mr. Pepper
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)
Performance score7.0
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Pepper is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dan
The Way Back (2020)
Performance score7.0
The Way Back asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Iggy
Hollywood Stargirl (2022)
Performance score6.6
Hollywood Stargirl asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Iggy 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 Tim
Start here. Air is the clearest statement of what Al Madrigal does — accessible, 112 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Al 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 Way Back (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Air but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Way Back — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Violet (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Map of Tiny Perfect Things — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Hollywood Stargirl (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Violet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Malcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Night School
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Way Back
A.J. Tesler
Director
1 film together
Notably Hero Mode
BenDavid Grabinski
Director
1 film together
Notably Happily
Justine Bateman
Director
1 film together
Notably Violet
Debra Neil-Fisher
Director
1 film together
Notably Unplugging
Daniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together
Notably Morbius
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Air
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AirJustine Bateman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VioletGavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Way BackMalcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night SchoolDaniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MorbiusBenDavid Grabinski
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HappilyA.J. Tesler
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hero ModeDebra Neil-Fisher
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnpluggingSix 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
Air
as Tim
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 Map of Tiny Perfect Things
as Mr. Pepper
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Air
as Tim
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Air
as Tim
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Air
as Tim
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. Al Madrigal 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things
as Mr. Pepper
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Air
as Tim
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things
as Mr. Pepper
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Drugstore June
as Detective David Foltz
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Air
as Tim
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Morbius
as Agent Rodriguez
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Hollywood Stargirl
as Iggy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Drugstore June
as Detective David Foltz
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: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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