Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#795
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ray Stevenson 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.
Ray Stevenson appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ray. Thor: Ragnarok is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 adventure, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Pierre Morel, S. S. Rajamouli, Martin Campbell and others, Ray Stevenson 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.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) as Volstagg · RRR (2022) as Scott Buxton · Thor (2011) as Volstagg
Career snapshot
Ranked #795 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2004–2025
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Thor: Ragnarok
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
RRR
Most frequent director
Robert Schwentke
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Schwentke
Most common genre
Action
19 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
6.4
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, Thor: Ragnarok — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 13 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.5
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. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, King Arthur.
Most productive era
2010s
13 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 | 6.41 film | 6.42 films | 7.71 film |
| Action | 6.22 films | 6.513 films | 6.94 films |
| Thriller | 5.91 film | 6.37 films | 6.52 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.83 films | 6.81 film |
| Crime | — | 6.52 films | 6.63 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004King Arthur
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dagonet.
Highest rated performance
2017Thor: Ragnarok
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2022RRR
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 Caesareane.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Scott Buxton
Directed by S. S. Rajamouli
as Volstagg
Directed by Taika Waititi
as Danny Greene
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
as Marcus
Directed by Neil Burger
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
Scott Buxton
RRR (2022)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Scott Buxton gives Ray Stevenson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Volstagg
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Performance score7.6
Thor: Ragnarok asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Volstagg is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Danny Greene
Kill the Irishman (2011)
Performance score7.4
Kill the Irishman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Danny Greene is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Big Ray
Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday (2022)
Performance score7.2
Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Big Ray 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 Scott Buxton
Start here. RRR is the clearest statement of what Ray Stevenson does — accessible, 187 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ray 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.
Kill the Irishman (2011)
Keeps the action register of RRR but asks for a colder reading of it.
Divergent (2014)
Keeps the action register of Kill the Irishman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Keeps the action register of Divergent but asks for a colder reading of it.
Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday (2022)
Keeps the action register of Thor: Ragnarok but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Schwentke
Director
2 films together
Notably Insurgent
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably King Arthur
Paul Weitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Albert Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably The Book of Eli
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Other Guys
Jonathan Hensleigh
Director
1 film together
Notably Kill the Irishman
Paul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Three Musketeers
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Thor
Jon M. Chu
Director
1 film together
Notably G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Alan Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Thor: The Dark World
Neil Burger
Director
1 film together
Notably Divergent
Taika Waititi
Director
1 film together
Notably Thor: Ragnarok
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Accident Man
Scott Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Final Score
Martin Campbell
Director
1 film together
Notably Memory
S. S. Rajamouli
Director
1 film together
Notably RRR
Pierre Morel
Director
1 film together
Notably Canary Black
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Schwentke
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
InsurgentTaika Waititi
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thor: RagnarokS. S. Rajamouli
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RRRKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ThorNeil Burger
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DivergentJonathan Hensleigh
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kill the IrishmanAlbert Hughes
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Book of EliMartin Campbell
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MemoryAlan Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thor: The Dark WorldAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
King ArthurJesse 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 ManAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Other GuysPierre Morel
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Canary BlackScott 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 ScorePaul Weitz
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's AssistantPaul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Three MusketeersJon M. Chu
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
G.I. Joe: RetaliationSix 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
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
RRR
as Scott Buxton
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
RRR
as Scott Buxton
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. Ray Stevenson 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
21 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
19 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
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
RRR
as Scott Buxton
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Allegiant
as Marcus Eaton
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Thor: Ragnarok
as Volstagg
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Final Score
as Arkady
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
RRR
as Scott Buxton
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Thor
as Volstagg
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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