Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4022
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Matt Nolan represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Matt is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Matt Nolan appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matt. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 comedy, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Aaron Horvath, Matt Danner, Zack Snyder and others, Matt Nolan 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 Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) as Additional Voices (voice) · Only the Brave (2017) as Medic in Helicopter · Argo (2012) as Peter Genco
Career snapshot
Ranked #4022 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Most frequent director
Matt Danner
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Matt Danner
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.6
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
7.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Frozen II, Only the Brave, Jersey Boys — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.2
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.2
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. Ghosts of Mars.
Most productive era
2020s
11 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 | — | 7.23 films | 6.92 films |
| Action | 5.21 film | — | 6.22 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.31 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.21 film | 6.97 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.92 films |
| Horror | 5.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001Ghosts of Mars
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Miner.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
8.3 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. The current state of the argument, as Additional Voices (voice).
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 Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Medic in Helicopter
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
as Peter Genco
Directed by Ben Affleck
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Chris Buck
as Stinsons Dad
Directed by Akiva Schaffer
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
Additional Voices (voice)
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Additional Voices (voice) gives Matt Nolan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Medic in Helicopter
Only the Brave (2017)
Performance score7.3
Only the Brave asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Medic in Helicopter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Peter Genco
Argo (2012)
Performance score7.2
Argo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peter Genco is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Additional Voices (voice)
Frozen II (2019)
Performance score7.1
Frozen II asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (voice) 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 Additional Voices (voice)
Start here. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the clearest statement of what Matt Nolan does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matt 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.
Argo (2012)
A deliberate change of key after The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Only the Brave (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Argo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Frozen II (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Only the Brave — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Frozen II but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Luke Cormican
Director
2 films together
Notably Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
Zack Snyder
Director
2 films together
Notably Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire
Matt Danner
Director
2 films together
Notably Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghosts of Mars
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Argo
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Jersey Boys
Joseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together
Notably Only the Brave
Chris Buck
Director
1 film together
Notably Frozen II
Swinton O. Scott III
Director
1 film together
Notably Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Akiva Schaffer
Director
1 film together
Notably Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
Aaron Horvath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Luke Cormican
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick RulesMatt Danner
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last StrawZack Snyder
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of FireAaron Horvath
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Super Mario Galaxy MovieJoseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Only the BraveBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArgoChris Buck
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Frozen IIAkiva Schaffer
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue RangersClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jersey BoysSwinton O. Scott III
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Diary of a Wimpy KidJohn Carpenter
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghosts of MarsSix 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 Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Only the Brave
as Medic in Helicopter
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 Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
as Stinsons Dad
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
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. Matt Nolan 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
25 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in comedy, 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 Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
After Ever Happy
as Additional Voices (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
as Stinsons Dad
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver
as Loader
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
as Additional Voices (voice)
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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