Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3847
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Hamish Linklater 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.
Hamish Linklater appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hamish. The Big Short 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, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mike Flanagan, James Ashcroft, Kogonada and others, Hamish Linklater 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.
The Big Short (2015) as Porter Collins · The Life of Chuck (2025) as American Reporter (voice) · 42 (2013) as Ralph Branca
Career snapshot
Ranked #3847 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2005–2027
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
The Big Short
Average Nutevio score
5.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
The Big Short
Most frequent director
Mike Flanagan
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Mike Flanagan
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.2
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. The Big Short, Magic in the Moonlight, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.5
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. Fantastic Four.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | — | 6.74 films | 6.27 films |
| Action | 6.01 film | 5.91 film | 5.81 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | 4.33 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.53 films | 5.51 film |
| Crime | — | — | 3.52 films |
| Romance | — | 6.51 film | 5.82 films |
| Horror | — | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Fantastic Four
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Leonard.
Highest rated performance
2015The Big Short
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2025Barron's Cove
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.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Lyle Chambers
Directed by Unknown
as American Reporter (voice)
Directed by Mike Flanagan
as Porter Collins
Directed by Adam McKay
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
Lyle Chambers
Barron's Cove (2025)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lyle Chambers gives Hamish Linklater a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
American Reporter (voice)
The Life of Chuck (2025)
Performance score7.2
The Life of Chuck asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. American Reporter (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Porter Collins
The Big Short (2015)
Performance score7.2
The Big Short asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Porter Collins is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ralph Branca
42 (2013)
Performance score7.1
42 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ralph Branca 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 Lyle Chambers
Start here. Barron's Cove is the clearest statement of what Hamish Linklater does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hamish 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.
42 (2013)
Keeps the drama register of Barron's Cove but asks for a colder reading of it.
Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
Keeps the drama register of 42 but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Big Short (2015)
Keeps the comedy register of Magic in the Moonlight but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Life of Chuck (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The Big Short but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mike Flanagan
Director
2 films together
Notably The Life of Chuck
Tim Story
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantastic Four
Peter Berg
Director
1 film together
Notably Battleship
Brian Helgeland
Director
1 film together
Notably 42
Phil Alden Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Magic in the Moonlight
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Short
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead for a Dollar
Hamish Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Downtown Owl
Kogonada
Director
1 film together
Notably A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
James Ashcroft
Director
1 film together
Notably The Whisper Man
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mike Flanagan
Director
2 films together · 3.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Life of ChuckAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big ShortBrian Helgeland
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
42Woody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Magic in the MoonlightKogonada
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Big Bold Beautiful JourneyTim Story
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantastic FourPeter Berg
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BattleshipWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead for a DollarPhil Alden Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Angriest Man in BrooklynHamish Linklater
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Downtown OwlJames Ashcroft
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Whisper ManSix 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
The Big Short
as Porter Collins
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Nickel Boys
as Spencer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Big Short
as Porter Collins
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Life of Chuck
as American Reporter (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Barron's Cove
as Lyle Chambers
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. Hamish Linklater 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
22 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
The Life of Chuck
as American Reporter (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Barron's Cove
as Lyle Chambers
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
as David's Father
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Life of Chuck
as American Reporter (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Life of Chuck
as American Reporter (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dead for a Dollar
as Martin Kidd
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Magic in the Moonlight
as Brice
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Fantastic Four
as Leonard
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
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Hamish Linklater 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
