Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2078
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ray Wise represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Ray is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ray Wise appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ray. Unholy 'Mole is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 science fiction, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gavin Hignight, Nick Corirossi, Chris Pine and others, Ray Wise 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.
Unholy 'Mole (2019) as The Devil (voice) · RoboCop (1987) as Leon Nash · X-Men: First Class (2011) as Secretary of State
Career snapshot
Ranked #2078 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1987–2026
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Unholy 'Mole
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Unholy 'Mole
Most frequent director
Gavin Hignight
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gavin Hignight
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 32m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
1980s
7.4 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. RoboCop — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. RoboCop.
Most productive era
2010s
9 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.73 films | 7.11 film | 6.71 film | 2.82 films |
| Action | 7.41 film | 6.11 film | — | 7.31 film | — |
| Thriller | 7.41 film | 6.11 film | — | 5.23 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.61 film | — | 5.63 films | 5.34 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.11 film | 6.91 film |
| Horror | — | 7.31 film | — | 5.44 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987RoboCop
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Leon Nash.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Unholy 'Mole
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
2026The Napa Boys
The current state of the argument, as Officer Toland.
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 The Devil (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Leland Palmer
Directed by David Lynch
as Secretary of State
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
as Leon Nash
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
as Don Hollenbeck
Directed by George Clooney
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
The Devil (voice)
Unholy 'Mole (2019)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The Devil (voice) gives Ray Wise a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leland Palmer
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
Performance score7.6
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leland Palmer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Secretary of State
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Performance score7.2
X-Men: First Class asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Secretary of State is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Leon Nash
RoboCop (1987)
Performance score7.2
RoboCop asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leon Nash 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 The Devil (voice)
Start here. Unholy 'Mole is the clearest statement of what Ray Wise does — accessible, 6 minutes, and rated 10.0 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.
RoboCop (1987)
A deliberate change of key after Unholy 'Mole — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
A deliberate change of key after RoboCop — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me but asks for a colder reading of it.
X-Men: First Class (2011)
A deliberate change of key after Good Night, and Good Luck. — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together
Notably RoboCop
Tim Robbins
Director
1 film together
Notably Bob Roberts
David Lynch
Director
1 film together
Notably Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Rising Sun
George Clooney
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Night, and Good Luck.
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together
Notably X-Men: First Class
David Gelb
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lazarus Effect
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably All the Way
Eli Craig
Director
1 film together
Notably Little Evil
David Martín Porras
Director
1 film together
Notably The Chain
Steve Franks
Director
1 film together
Notably Psych 3: This Is Gus
Chris Pine
Director
1 film together
Notably Poolman
Nick Corirossi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Napa Boys
Gavin Hignight
Director
1 film together
Notably NANOcell
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoboCopMatthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
X-Men: First ClassDavid Lynch
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with MeGeorge Clooney
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good Night, and Good Luck.Steve Franks
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Psych 3: This Is GusJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All the WayTim Robbins
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bob RobertsPhilip Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rising SunEli Craig
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Little EvilDavid Gelb
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lazarus EffectDavid Martín Porras
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ChainNick Corirossi
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Napa BoysChris Pine
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PoolmanGavin Hignight
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NANOcellSix 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
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (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
Good Night, and Good Luck.
as Don Hollenbeck
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
X-Men: First Class
as Secretary of State
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (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. Ray Wise 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
39 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
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Good Night, and Good Luck.
as Don Hollenbeck
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Psych 3: This Is Gus
as Father Peter Westley
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Unholy 'Mole
as The Devil (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
X-Men: First Class
as Secretary of State
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Good Night, and Good Luck.
as Don Hollenbeck
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
All the Way
as Senator Everett Dirksen
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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