Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5022
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jose Pablo Cantillo 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.
Jose Pablo Cantillo appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jose. Cherry 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 action, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Joe Carnahan, Michael Bay, Anthony Russo and others, Jose Pablo Cantillo 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.
Cherry (2021) as Drill Sgt. Deco · The Rip (2026) as DEA Agent Dayo Reyes · Zygote (2017) as Quinn
Career snapshot
Ranked #5022 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2004–2026
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Cherry
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Cherry
Most frequent director
Joe Carnahan
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Joe Carnahan
Most common genre
Thriller
10 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
6.9
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
6.4
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
2020s
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Rip, Ambulance, Cherry — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.8
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. Crank: High Voltage, Redbelt, Cleaner.
Most productive era
2000s
6 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 | 6.13 films | 6.43 films | 6.92 films |
| Action | 6.42 films | 6.72 films | 6.73 films |
| Thriller | 6.34 films | 6.33 films | 6.73 films |
| Comedy | 5.51 film | — | — |
| Crime | 6.33 films | 6.62 films | 6.84 films |
| Romance | 5.51 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 7.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Villalobos.
Career peak
2017Zygote
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2021Cherry
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026The Rip
The current state of the argument, as DEA Agent Dayo Reyes.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Drill Sgt. Deco
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Verona
Directed by Brian Taylor
as DEA Agent Dayo Reyes
Directed by Joe Carnahan
as Detective Martinez
Directed by Ben Hernandez Bray
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
Quinn
Zygote (2017)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Quinn gives Jose Pablo Cantillo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Drill Sgt. Deco
Cherry (2021)
Performance score7.2
Cherry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Drill Sgt. Deco is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Verona
Crank (2006)
Performance score7.1
Crank asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Verona is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
DEA Agent Dayo Reyes
The Rip (2026)
Performance score7.0
The Rip asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. DEA Agent Dayo Reyes 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 Quinn
Start here. Zygote is the clearest statement of what Jose Pablo Cantillo does — accessible, 23 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jose 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.
Crank (2006)
A deliberate change of key after Zygote — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
El Chicano (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Crank — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cherry (2021)
Keeps the drama register of El Chicano but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Rip (2026)
Keeps the crime register of Cherry but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brian Taylor
Director
2 films together
Notably Crank
Joe Carnahan
Director
2 films together
Notably The Rip
Jonathan Demme
Director
1 film together
Notably The Manchurian Candidate
Eric Amadio
Director
1 film together
Notably After Sex
Renny Harlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Cleaner
David Mamet
Director
1 film together
Notably Redbelt
Ben Hernandez Bray
Director
1 film together
Notably El Chicano
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Cherry
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Ambulance
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joe Carnahan
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The RipBrian Taylor
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
CrankAnthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CherryMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AmbulanceBen Hernandez Bray
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
El ChicanoJonathan Demme
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 Manchurian CandidateDavid Mamet
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RedbeltRenny Harlin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CleanerEric Amadio
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
After SexSix 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
Cherry
as Drill Sgt. Deco
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
After Sex
as Marco
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Cherry
as Drill Sgt. Deco
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Manchurian Candidate
as Villalobos
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Zygote
as Quinn
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. Jose Pablo Cantillo 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Cherry
as Drill Sgt. Deco
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Rip
as DEA Agent Dayo Reyes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
After Sex
as Marco
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Solace
as Sawyer
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Rip
as DEA Agent Dayo Reyes
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Chappie
as Yankie (Amerika)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Man Down
as Taylor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Man Down
as Taylor
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jodie Foster
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Anthony Hopkins
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
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Reference
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