Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15797
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Brian Stack works on quiet performance 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.
Brian Stack appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Brian. Hotel Transylvania is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for tv movie, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brent Hodge, Lucia Aniello, Genndy Tartakovsky and others, Brian Stack 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.
Hotel Transylvania (2012) as Pilot (voice) · Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh (2019) as Self · Baby Mama (2008) as Dave
Career snapshot
Ranked #15797 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2008–2019
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Hotel Transylvania
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh
Most frequent director
Brent Hodge
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Brent Hodge
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh, Rough Night, Hotel Transylvania — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Baby Mama.
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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | 6.52 films |
| Romance | 6.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Baby Mama
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dave.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.1 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
2019Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh
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.
4 of 4 films
as Pilot (voice)
Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky
as Bob
Directed by Lucia Aniello
as Dave
Directed by Michael McCullers
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
Pilot (voice)
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pilot (voice) gives Brian Stack a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh (2019)
Performance score6.5
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bob
Rough Night (2017)
Performance score6.5
Rough Night asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bob is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dave
Baby Mama (2008)
Performance score6.5
Baby Mama asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dave 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 Pilot (voice)
Start here. Hotel Transylvania is the clearest statement of what Brian Stack does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Brian 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.
Baby Mama (2008)
Keeps the comedy register of Hotel Transylvania but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rough Night (2017)
Keeps the comedy register of Baby Mama but asks for a colder reading of it.
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Rough Night — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael McCullers
Director
1 film together
Notably Baby Mama
Genndy Tartakovsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Hotel Transylvania
Lucia Aniello
Director
1 film together
Notably Rough Night
Brent Hodge
Director
1 film together
Notably Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Genndy Tartakovsky
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hotel TransylvaniaBrent Hodge
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chris Farley: Anything for a LaughMichael McCullers
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Baby MamaLucia Aniello
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rough NightSix 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
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rough Night
as Bob
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
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. Brian Stack 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
3 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
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh
as Self
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Hotel Transylvania
as Pilot (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Rough Night
as Bob
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Tim Allen
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Joan Cusack
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Greta Lee
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Conan O'Brien
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Have your say
Community
Which Brian Stack 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
