Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2619
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Martyn Ford 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.
Martyn Ford appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Martyn. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, action. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Simon McQuoid, MJ Bassett, Peter Atencio and others, Martyn Ford 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.
Mortal Kombat II (2026) as Shao Kahn · Boyka: Undisputed IV (2016) as Koshmar · F9 (2021) as Lieutenant Sue
Career snapshot
Ranked #2619 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2016–2026
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Most frequent director
Simon McQuoid
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Simon McQuoid
Most common genre
Action
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
6.2
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. Final Score, Accident Man, Redcon-1 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 5 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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Final Score, Accident Man, Redcon-1.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | — |
| Action | 6.55 films | 6.35 films |
| Thriller | 6.53 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 5.42 films |
| Crime | 6.83 films | 6.32 films |
| Horror | 5.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Koshmar.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Mortal Kombat II
7.9 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. The current state of the argument, as Shao Kahn.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Shao Kahn
Directed by Simon McQuoid
as Koshmar
Directed by Unknown
as Lieutenant Sue
Directed by Justin Lin
as Glastonbury Guard
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
as General Karlak
Directed by MJ Bassett
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
Shao Kahn
Mortal Kombat II (2026)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Shao Kahn gives Martyn Ford a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Koshmar
Boyka: Undisputed IV (2016)
Performance score7.3
Boyka: Undisputed IV asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Koshmar is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Lieutenant Sue
F9 (2021)
Performance score6.9
F9 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lieutenant Sue is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Glastonbury Guard
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Performance score6.9
Kingsman: The Golden Circle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Glastonbury Guard 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 Shao Kahn
Start here. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest statement of what Martyn Ford does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Martyn 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.
Boyka: Undisputed IV (2016)
Keeps the action register of Mortal Kombat II but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Keeps the action register of Boyka: Undisputed IV but asks for a colder reading of it.
F9 (2021)
Keeps the action register of Kingsman: The Golden Circle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Red Sonja (2025)
Keeps the action register of F9 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together
Notably Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Accident Man
Scott Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Final Score
Justin Lin
Director
1 film together
Notably F9
Peter Atencio
Director
1 film together
Notably The Machine
MJ Bassett
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Sonja
Simon McQuoid
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortal Kombat II
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Simon McQuoid
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat IIJustin Lin
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
F9Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kingsman: The Golden CircleJesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Accident ManScott Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Final ScoreMJ Bassett
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red SonjaPeter Atencio
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 MachineSix 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
F9
as Lieutenant Sue
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
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. Martyn Ford 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Action Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in action, 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Boyka: Undisputed IV
as Koshmar
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mortal Kombat II
as Shao Kahn
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Boyka: Undisputed IV
as Koshmar
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Red Sonja
as General Karlak
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
Community
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Reference
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