Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7114
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Lawrence Gilliard Jr. represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Lawrence is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lawrence Gilliard Jr. appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lawrence. Big George Foreman is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, history, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with George Tillman Jr., Regina King, Steven Brill and others, Lawrence Gilliard Jr. 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.
Big George Foreman (2023) as Archie Moore · The Machinist (2004) as Jackson · Gangs of New York (2002) as Jimmy Spoils
Career snapshot
Ranked #7114 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1995–2023
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Big George Foreman
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Big George Foreman
Most frequent director
George Tillman Jr.
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With George Tillman Jr.
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.7
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
2020s
7.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Big George Foreman, One Night in Miami... — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Waterboy, Trees Lounge, Money Train.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.91 film | 7.52 films | — | 7.32 films |
| Action | 5.91 film | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.33 films | 6.41 film | 6.01 film | — |
| Crime | 5.91 film | 6.92 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1995Money Train
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hood.
Career peak
2004The Machinist
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Archie Moore.
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 Jackson
Directed by Brad Anderson
as Archie Moore
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
as Jimmy Spoils
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as James
Directed by Steve Buscemi
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
Jackson
The Machinist (2004)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jackson gives Lawrence Gilliard Jr. a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Archie Moore
Big George Foreman (2023)
Performance score7.4
Big George Foreman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Archie Moore is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jimmy Spoils
Gangs of New York (2002)
Performance score7.2
Gangs of New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jimmy Spoils is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bundini Brown
One Night in Miami... (2020)
Performance score6.9
One Night in Miami... asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bundini Brown 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 Jackson
Start here. The Machinist is the clearest statement of what Lawrence Gilliard Jr. does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lawrence 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.
Trees Lounge (1996)
Keeps the drama register of The Machinist but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Keeps the drama register of Trees Lounge but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Night in Miami... (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Gangs of New York but asks for a colder reading of it.
Big George Foreman (2023)
Keeps the drama register of One Night in Miami... but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Steve Buscemi
Director
1 film together
Notably Trees Lounge
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Waterboy
John Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Cecil B. Demented
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably Gangs of New York
Brad Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Machinist
Steven Brill
Director
1 film together
Notably Walk of Shame
Regina King
Director
1 film together
Notably One Night in Miami...
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Big George Foreman
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big George ForemanBrad Anderson
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MachinistMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gangs of New YorkRegina King
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Night in Miami...Steve Buscemi
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Trees LoungeJohn Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cecil B. DementedFrank Coraci
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WaterboySteven Brill
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Walk of ShameSix 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
Big George Foreman
as Archie Moore
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Big George Foreman
as Archie Moore
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 Machinist
as Jackson
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Trees Lounge
as James
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Machinist
as Jackson
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. Lawrence Gilliard Jr. 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
28 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
5 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
Big George Foreman
as Archie Moore
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Machinist
as Jackson
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Big George Foreman
as Archie Moore
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gangs of New York
as Jimmy Spoils
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Big George Foreman
as Archie Moore
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Cecil B. Demented
as Lewis
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gangs of New York
as Jimmy Spoils
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gangs of New York
as Jimmy Spoils
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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