Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20461
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Hayes MacArthur 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.
Hayes MacArthur appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hayes. The Way Back is the clearest case: a film rated 6.6 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 romance, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with John Asher, Bobby Farrelly, Jeremy Garelick and others, Hayes MacArthur 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 Way Back (2020) as Eric (uncredited) · She's Out of My League (2010) as Ron · The Game Plan (2007) as Kyle Cooper
Career snapshot
Ranked #20461 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.6
The Way Back
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.6
The Way Back
Most frequent director
John Asher
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With John Asher
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
2000s
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Game Plan — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. The Game Plan.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | — | — | 3.32 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 5.94 films | 5.82 films |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.02 films | 0.01 film |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
2007The Game Plan
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kyle Cooper. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2020The Way Back
6.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026A Love Like This
The current state of the argument, as Paul.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Kyle Cooper
Directed by Andy Fickman
as Eric (uncredited)
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
as Paul
Directed by John Asher
as Bill Turner
Directed by Bobby Farrelly
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
Kyle Cooper
The Game Plan (2007)
Performance score6.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kyle Cooper gives Hayes MacArthur a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Eric (uncredited)
The Way Back (2020)
Performance score6.6
The Way Back asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eric (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Paul
A Love Like This (2026)
Performance score6.5
A Love Like This asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paul is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bill Turner
Dear Santa (2024)
Performance score6.5
Dear Santa asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill Turner 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 Kyle Cooper
Start here. The Game Plan is the clearest statement of what Hayes MacArthur does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 6.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hayes 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)
A deliberate change of key after The Game Plan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Binge (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Way Back — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dear Santa (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of The Binge but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Love Like This (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Dear Santa — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andy Fickman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Game Plan
Jim Field Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably She's Out of My League
Leslye Headland
Director
1 film together
Notably Bachelorette
Jay Chandrasekhar
Director
1 film together
Notably Super Troopers 2
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Way Back
Jeremy Garelick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Binge
Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Dear Santa
John Asher
Director
1 film together
Notably A Love Like This
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Gavin 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 BackJim Field Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She's Out of My LeagueAndy Fickman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Game PlanBobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dear SantaJay Chandrasekhar
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Super Troopers 2Leslye Headland
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BacheloretteJeremy Garelick
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BingeJohn Asher
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Love Like ThisSix 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 Way Back
as Eric (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Love Like This
as Paul
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 Game Plan
as Kyle Cooper
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Way Back
as Eric (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Game Plan
as Kyle Cooper
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. Hayes MacArthur 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
7 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
Super Troopers 2
as Mountie Podien
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Super Troopers 2
as Mountie Podien
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Love Like This
as Paul
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Super Troopers 2
as Mountie Podien
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Way Back
as Eric (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
She's Out of My League
as Ron
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
She's Out of My League
as Ron
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Super Troopers 2
as Mountie Podien
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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