Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4762
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Peter Kelamis represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Peter is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Peter Kelamis appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Peter. Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 romance, comedy, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Justin Wu, David Winning, Taran Killam and others, Peter Kelamis 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.
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead (2021) as Graham · 50/50 (2011) as Phil · Miracle (2004) as Reporter
Career snapshot
Ranked #4762 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1996–2025
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
Most frequent director
Justin Wu
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Justin Wu
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
6.5
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
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Happy Gilmore — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.7
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. Happy Gilmore.
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.42 films | 7.12 films | 7.51 film |
| Action | — | — | 4.81 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 5.71 film | 6.04 films | 6.22 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 7.51 film |
| Romance | — | 5.71 film | — | 6.31 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Happy Gilmore
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Potter's Caddy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
7.5 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
The current state of the argument, as Principal Cantor.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Graham
Directed by David Winning
as Phil
Directed by Jonathan Levine
as Reporter
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
as Real Estate Guy
Directed by Tim Burton
as Demo Guy
Directed by Drew Goddard
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
Graham
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead (2021)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Graham gives Peter Kelamis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Phil
50/50 (2011)
Performance score7.1
50/50 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Phil is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Reporter
Miracle (2004)
Performance score7.0
Miracle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reporter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Real Estate Guy
Big Eyes (2014)
Performance score6.9
Big Eyes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Real Estate Guy 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 Graham
Start here. Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead is the clearest statement of what Peter Kelamis does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Peter 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.
Miracle (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead but asks for a colder reading of it.
50/50 (2011)
Keeps the drama register of Miracle but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Keeps the comedy register of 50/50 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Big Eyes (2014)
A deliberate change of key after The Cabin in the Woods — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Gilmore
Stephen Herek
Director
1 film together
Notably Life or Something Like It
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably Miracle
Michael Lembeck
Director
1 film together
Notably Tooth Fairy
Jonathan Levine
Director
1 film together
Notably 50/50
Drew Goddard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cabin in the Woods
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Eyes
Taran Killam
Director
1 film together
Notably Killing Gunther
David Winning
Director
1 film together
Notably Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
Justin Wu
Director
1 film together
Notably Sidelined: The QB and Me
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Winning
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me DeadJonathan Levine
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
50/50Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MiracleTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big EyesDrew Goddard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Cabin in the WoodsDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy GilmoreJustin Wu
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sidelined: The QB and MeStephen Herek
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Life or Something Like ItMichael Lembeck
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tooth FairyTaran Killam
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Killing GuntherSix 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
Miracle
as Reporter
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Miracle
as Reporter
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Life or Something Like It
as AM USA Producer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
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. Peter Kelamis 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
29 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
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Miracle
as Reporter
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Killing Gunther
as Rahmat Noushzad Fairouza
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Life or Something Like It
as AM USA Producer
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Crossword Mysteries: Riddle Me Dead
as Graham
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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