Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3033
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
C.S. Lee represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and C.S. is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
C.S. Lee appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without C.S.. Tuner 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, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Roher, Brett Haley, David S. Goyer and others, C.S. Lee 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.
Tuner (2026) as Yong · All Together Now (2020) as Father Chee · Come As You Are (2020) as Roger
Career snapshot
Ranked #3033 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1999–2026
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Tuner
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Tuner
Most frequent director
Daniel Roher
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Roher
Most common genre
Drama
4 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
6.4
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
2020s
6.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Tuner, Come As You Are, All Together Now — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
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
2020s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Random Hearts.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.61 film | — | 6.73 films |
| Thriller | 5.61 film | 5.21 film | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | — | 5.71 film | 6.61 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.91 film |
| Romance | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.52 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Random Hearts
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Luncheonette Counterman.
Career peak
2020Come As You Are
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2026Tuner
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Yong.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Yong
Directed by Daniel Roher
as Roger
Directed by Unknown
as Father Chee
Directed by Brett Haley
as Dr. Lester Caldwell
Directed by David S. Goyer
as Additional Stepford Husband
Directed by Frank Oz
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
Yong
Tuner (2026)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Yong gives C.S. Lee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Roger
Come As You Are (2020)
Performance score6.8
Come As You Are asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roger is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Father Chee
All Together Now (2020)
Performance score6.6
All Together Now asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Father Chee is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Lester Caldwell
The Unborn (2009)
Performance score6.5
The Unborn asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Lester Caldwell 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 Yong
Start here. Tuner is the clearest statement of what C.S. Lee does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet C.S. 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 Stepford Wives (2004)
A deliberate change of key after Tuner — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Unborn (2009)
Keeps the horror register of The Stepford Wives but asks for a colder reading of it.
Come As You Are (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Unborn — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
All Together Now (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Come As You Are but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sydney Pollack
Director
1 film together
Notably Random Hearts
Frank Oz
Director
1 film together
Notably The Stepford Wives
David S. Goyer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Unborn
Brett Haley
Director
1 film together
Notably All Together Now
Daniel Roher
Director
1 film together
Notably Tuner
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Daniel Roher
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TunerBrett Haley
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Together NowFrank Oz
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Stepford WivesSydney Pollack
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Random HeartsDavid S. Goyer
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The UnbornSix 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
Tuner
as Yong
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Random Hearts
as Luncheonette Counterman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Tuner
as Yong
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Random Hearts
as Luncheonette Counterman
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Tuner
as Yong
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. C.S. Lee 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
27 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
4 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
Tuner
as Yong
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Tuner
as Yong
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Random Hearts
as Luncheonette Counterman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Unborn
as Dr. Lester Caldwell
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Tuner
as Yong
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Come As You Are
as Roger
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Tuner
as Yong
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Unborn
as Dr. Lester Caldwell
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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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
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Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Richmond Arquette
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Bob Stephenson
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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