Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6008
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Steve Bannos 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.
Steve Bannos appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Steve. Superbad is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 drama, action, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Andrew Dominik, Paul Feig, John Hamburg and others, Steve Bannos 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.
Superbad (2007) as Math Teacher · Spy (2015) as Alan the Bartender · The Heat (2013) as Wayne
Career snapshot
Ranked #6008 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2004–2022
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Superbad
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Superbad
Most frequent director
Paul Feig
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Paul Feig
Most common genre
Comedy
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
6.3
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
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Ghostbusters, Why Him?, Spy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
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. Funny People, Pineapple Express, Drillbit Taylor.
Most productive era
2000s
8 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 | 5.91 film | — | 5.91 film |
| Action | 6.61 film | 6.23 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.38 films | 6.36 films | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 6.72 films | — |
| Romance | 6.41 film | 6.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Nikos.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2007Superbad
7.4 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
2022Blonde
The current state of the argument, as Brentwood Doctor (uncredited).
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.
15 of 15 films
as Math Teacher
Directed by Greg Mottola
as Thug #2 - Jared
Directed by David Gordon Green
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
Math Teacher
Superbad (2007)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Math Teacher gives Steve Bannos a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Alan the Bartender
Spy (2015)
Performance score6.7
Spy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alan the Bartender is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Wayne
The Heat (2013)
Performance score6.6
The Heat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wayne is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Thug #2 - Jared
Pineapple Express (2008)
Performance score6.6
Pineapple Express asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thug #2 - Jared 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 Math Teacher
Start here. Superbad is the clearest statement of what Steve Bannos does — accessible, 113 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Steve 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.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Keeps the comedy register of Superbad but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pineapple Express (2008)
Keeps the comedy register of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Heat (2013)
Keeps the action register of Pineapple Express but asks for a colder reading of it.
Spy (2015)
Same director as The Heat, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Feig
Director
4 films together
Notably Spy
Judd Apatow
Director
2 films together
Notably The 40 Year Old Virgin
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Greg Mottola
Director
1 film together
Notably Superbad
Steven Brill
Director
1 film together
Notably Drillbit Taylor
David Gordon Green
Director
1 film together
Notably Pineapple Express
Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together
Notably Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
John Hamburg
Director
1 film together
Notably Why Him?
Andrew Dominik
Director
1 film together
Notably Blonde
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Feig
Director
4 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
SpyJudd Apatow
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
The 40 Year Old VirginGreg Mottola
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperbadDavid Gordon Green
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pineapple ExpressJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox StoryJohn Hamburg
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Why Him?Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad DayAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost MovieAndrew Dominik
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BlondeSteven Brill
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Drillbit TaylorSix 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
Superbad
as Math Teacher
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The 40 Year Old Virgin
as Father at Restaurant
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Superbad
as Math Teacher
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Blonde
as Brentwood Doctor (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Superbad
as Math Teacher
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. Steve Bannos 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
14 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
Superbad
as Math Teacher
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spy
as Alan the Bartender
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The 40 Year Old Virgin
as Father at Restaurant
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ghostbusters
as Flasher Ghost
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spy
as Alan the Bartender
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Heat
as Wayne
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Funny People
as Deli Manager
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superbad
as Math Teacher
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Matt Damon
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Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and action
Cillian Murphy
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Morgan Freeman
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Have your say
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Reference
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