Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2430
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Glynn Turman represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Glynn is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Glynn Turman appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Glynn. STRAW is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tyler Perry, Kevin Costner, Kyle Marvin and others, Glynn Turman 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.
STRAW (2025) as Richard · Men of Honor (2000) as Chief Floyd · Burlesque (2010) as Harold Saint
Career snapshot
Ranked #2430 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1984–2026
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
STRAW
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
STRAW
Most frequent director
Tyler Perry
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tyler Perry
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
1980s
7.2 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Gremlins — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.1
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. Gremlins.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | 6.72 films | 6.82 films | 6.87 films |
| Action | — | 6.81 film | 5.91 film | 6.52 films | 5.51 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.81 film | — | 6.52 films | 7.22 films |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | — | 5.91 film | 6.32 films | 5.82 films |
| Crime | — | 6.81 film | — | 6.31 film | 7.22 films |
| Romance | — | — | — | 7.21 film | — |
| Horror | 7.21 film | — | — | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984Gremlins
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Roy Hanson.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025STRAW
7.7 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
The current state of the argument, as Calvin “Cece” Carr.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Richard
Directed by Tyler Perry
as Chief Floyd
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
as Lloyd Cowans
Directed by Charles Murray
as Harold Saint
Directed by Steve Antin
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
Richard
STRAW (2025)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Richard gives Glynn Turman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Chief Floyd
Men of Honor (2000)
Performance score7.3
Men of Honor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chief Floyd is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Lloyd Cowans
The Devil You Know (2022)
Performance score7.1
The Devil You Know asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lloyd Cowans is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Harold Saint
Burlesque (2010)
Performance score7.1
Burlesque asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harold Saint 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 Richard
Start here. STRAW is the clearest statement of what Glynn Turman does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Glynn 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.
Gremlins (1984)
A deliberate change of key after STRAW — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Men of Honor (2000)
A deliberate change of key after Gremlins — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Burlesque (2010)
Keeps the drama register of Men of Honor but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Devil You Know (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Burlesque but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joe Dante
Director
1 film together
Notably Gremlins
Bill Duke
Director
1 film together
Notably Deep Cover
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Men of Honor
Breck Eisner
Director
1 film together
Notably Sahara
Steve Antin
Director
1 film together
Notably Burlesque
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Super 8
Don Coscarelli
Director
1 film together
Notably John Dies at the End
Travis Knight
Director
1 film together
Notably Bumblebee
Michael Tiddes
Director
1 film together
Notably Sextuplets
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Way Back
Elvis Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Is That Black Enough for You?!?
Charles Murray
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devil You Know
Michael Jai White
Director
1 film together
Notably Outlaw Johnny Black
Kyle Marvin
Director
1 film together
Notably 80 for Brady
Kevin Costner
Director
1 film together
Notably Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
Tyler Perry
Director
1 film together
Notably STRAW
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tyler Perry
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
STRAWGeorge Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Men of HonorSteve Antin
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BurlesqueJoe Dante
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GremlinsKevin Costner
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Super 8Bill Duke
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deep CoverCharles Murray
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Devil You KnowTravis Knight
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BumblebeeGavin 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 BackDon Coscarelli
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John Dies at the EndKyle Marvin
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
80 for BradyElvis Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Is That Black Enough for You?!?Michael Tiddes
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SextupletsBreck Eisner
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SaharaMichael Jai White
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Outlaw Johnny BlackSix 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
Men of Honor
as Chief Floyd
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Burlesque
as Harold Saint
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Men of Honor
as Chief Floyd
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
STRAW
as Richard
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. Glynn Turman 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
42 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
11 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
STRAW
as Richard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
STRAW
as Richard
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
as Toledo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Super 8
as Dr. Woodward
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Bumblebee
as General Whalen
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Outlaw Johnny Black
as Bullseye Black
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
STRAW
as Richard
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gremlins
as Roy Hanson
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
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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