Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#21945
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Latham Gaines works on transformation 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.
Latham Gaines appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Latham. The World's Fastest Indian 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 transformation, versatility, emotional range. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Josh Ruben, Gábor Csupó, Peter Jackson and others, Latham Gaines 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 World's Fastest Indian (2005) as Passport Officer · Bridge to Terabithia (2007) as Bill Burke · King Kong (2005) as Photographer
Career snapshot
Ranked #21945 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2005–2025
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
The World's Fastest Indian
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
The World's Fastest Indian
Most frequent director
Josh Ruben
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Josh Ruben
Most common genre
Adventure
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 7m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.7
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
7.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Bridge to Terabithia, King Kong, The World's Fastest Indian — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.4
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.3
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. Bridge to Terabithia, King Kong, The World's Fastest Indian.
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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.43 films | — |
| Action | 7.01 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.31 film |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film |
| Horror | — | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005King Kong
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Photographer.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2005The World's Fastest Indian
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
2025Heart Eyes
The current state of the argument, as Nico.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Passport Officer
Directed by Roger Donaldson
as Bill Burke
Directed by Gábor Csupó
as Photographer
Directed by Peter Jackson
as Nico
Directed by Josh Ruben
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
Passport Officer
The World's Fastest Indian (2005)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Passport Officer gives Latham Gaines a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bill Burke
Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Performance score7.2
Bridge to Terabithia asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill Burke is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Photographer
King Kong (2005)
Performance score6.9
King Kong asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Photographer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nico
Heart Eyes (2025)
Performance score6.5
Heart Eyes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nico 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 Passport Officer
Start here. The World's Fastest Indian is the clearest statement of what Latham Gaines does — accessible, 127 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Latham 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.
King Kong (2005)
Keeps the adventure register of The World's Fastest Indian but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Keeps the adventure register of King Kong but asks for a colder reading of it.
Heart Eyes (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Bridge to Terabithia — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably The World's Fastest Indian
Peter Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably King Kong
Gábor Csupó
Director
1 film together
Notably Bridge to Terabithia
Josh Ruben
Director
1 film together
Notably Heart Eyes
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The World's Fastest IndianGábor Csupó
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bridge to TerabithiaPeter Jackson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
King KongJosh Ruben
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heart EyesSix 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 World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
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 World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
King Kong
as Photographer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
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. Latham Gaines 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
20 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in adventure, 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 World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
King Kong
as Photographer
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bridge to Terabithia
as Bill Burke
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Bridge to Terabithia
as Bill Burke
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
King Kong
as Photographer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The World's Fastest Indian
as Passport Officer
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
King Kong
as Photographer
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
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Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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