Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20610
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Johann Urb 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.
Johann Urb appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Johann. Chasing Unicorns is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 science fiction, comedy, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Paul W. S. Anderson, Nicole Kassell, Roland Emmerich and others, Johann Urb 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.
Chasing Unicorns (2019) as Tom Marcusson · 1408 (2007) as Surfer Dude · A Little Bit of Heaven (2011) as Doug
Career snapshot
Ranked #20610 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2001–2023
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Chasing Unicorns
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Chasing Unicorns
Most frequent director
Paul W. S. Anderson
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Paul W. S. Anderson
Most common genre
Science Fiction
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
2010s
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Chasing Unicorns, Resident Evil: Retribution, A Little Bit of Heaven — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 3 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. 2012, 1408, Zoolander.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Action | 6.11 film | 5.81 film | 4.82 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.52 films |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 6.82 films | 5.71 film |
| Romance | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Horror | 6.71 film | 5.81 film | 4.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001Zoolander
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mugatu Bodyguard.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Chasing Unicorns
7.3 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
2023Child Machine
The current state of the argument, as Marlon.
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 Tom Marcusson
Directed by Unknown
as Surfer Dude
Directed by Mikael Håfström
as Marlon
Directed by Unknown
as Toby Cavendish
Directed by Unknown
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
Tom Marcusson
Chasing Unicorns (2019)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tom Marcusson gives Johann Urb a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Surfer Dude
1408 (2007)
Performance score6.6
1408 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Surfer Dude is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marlon
Child Machine (2023)
Performance score6.5
Child Machine asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marlon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Toby Cavendish
American Siege (2022)
Performance score6.5
American Siege asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Toby Cavendish 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 Tom Marcusson
Start here. Chasing Unicorns is the clearest statement of what Johann Urb does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Johann 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.
1408 (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Chasing Unicorns — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Breach (2020)
Keeps the horror register of 1408 but asks for a colder reading of it.
American Siege (2022)
Same director as Breach, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Child Machine (2023)
Same director as American Siege, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ben Stiller
Director
1 film together
Notably Zoolander
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably 1408
Roland Emmerich
Director
1 film together
Notably 2012
Nicole Kassell
Director
1 film together
Notably A Little Bit of Heaven
Paul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Resident Evil: Retribution
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
1408Nicole Kassell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Little Bit of HeavenBen Stiller
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ZoolanderRoland Emmerich
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2012Paul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Resident Evil: RetributionSix 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
Chasing Unicorns
as Tom Marcusson
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 Little Bit of Heaven
as Doug
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Chasing Unicorns
as Tom Marcusson
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Zoolander
as Mugatu Bodyguard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Chasing Unicorns
as Tom Marcusson
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. Johann Urb 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.
Science Fiction Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in science fiction, 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
1408
as Surfer Dude
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
1408
as Surfer Dude
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Little Bit of Heaven
as Doug
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
1408
as Surfer Dude
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
2012
as Sasha
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
American Siege
as Toby Cavendish
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Little Bit of Heaven
as Doug
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
2012
as Sasha
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and drama
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Johann Urb 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
