Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1435
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jimmy Smits 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.
Jimmy Smits appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jimmy. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith 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 romance, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jon M. Chu, David Ayer, Gareth Edwards and others, Jimmy Smits 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.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) as Senator Bail Organa · Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) as Bail Organa · In the Heights (2021) as Kevin Rosario
Career snapshot
Ranked #1435 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2000–2021
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Most frequent director
George Lucas
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With George Lucas
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
2h 2m
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Mother and Child, The Jane Austen Book Club, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. Mother and Child, The Jane Austen Book Club, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 6.32 films | — | 6.42 films |
| Action | 7.32 films | 7.51 film | 5.71 film |
| Thriller | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 5.71 film |
| Romance | 6.52 films | — | 7.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Geronimo.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2005Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
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
2021In the Heights
The current state of the argument, as Kevin Rosario.
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 Senator Bail Organa
Directed by George Lucas
as Bail Organa
Directed by Gareth Edwards
as Kevin Rosario
Directed by Jon M. Chu
as Paco
Directed by Rodrigo García
as Senator Bail Organa
Directed by George Lucas
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Senator Bail Organa
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Senator Bail Organa gives Jimmy Smits a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bail Organa
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Performance score7.3
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bail Organa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kevin Rosario
In the Heights (2021)
Performance score7.0
In the Heights asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kevin Rosario is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Paco
Mother and Child (2009)
Performance score6.8
Mother and Child asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paco 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 Senator Bail Organa
Start here. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith is the clearest statement of what Jimmy Smits does — accessible, 140 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jimmy 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.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Same director as Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Mother and Child (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Mother and Child — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
In the Heights (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
George Lucas
Director
2 films together
Notably Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably The Million Dollar Hotel
Robin Swicord
Director
1 film together
Notably The Jane Austen Book Club
Rodrigo García
Director
1 film together
Notably Mother and Child
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Tax Collector
Jon M. Chu
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Heights
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Lucas
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the SithGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rogue One: A Star Wars StoryJon M. Chu
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the HeightsRodrigo García
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mother and ChildRobin Swicord
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 Jane Austen Book ClubWim Wenders
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Million Dollar HotelDavid Ayer
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 Tax CollectorSix 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
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
In the Heights
as Kevin Rosario
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Tax Collector
as The Wizard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
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. Jimmy Smits 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
21 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
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
In the Heights
as Kevin Rosario
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Million Dollar Hotel
as Geronimo
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
In the Heights
as Kevin Rosario
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Senator Bail Organa
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
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Reference
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