Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#34239
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tim Thomerson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Tim is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tim Thomerson appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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, documentary, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David A. Weiner, Paul Abascal, Terry Gilliam and others, Tim Thomerson 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.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) as Hoodlum · In Search of Tomorrow (2022) as Self - Interviewee · Honkytonk Man (1982) as Highway Patrolman
Career snapshot
Ranked #34239 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1982–2022
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Most frequent director
David A. Weiner
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David A. Weiner
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
2h 20m
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
6.6
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
2020s
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. In Search of Tomorrow — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.6
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. Cherry 2000, Honkytonk Man.
Most productive era
1980s
2 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.41 film | 6.52 films | 5.31 film | — |
| Action | 6.01 film | 5.81 film | 5.31 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.31 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.52 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1982Honkytonk Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Highway Patrolman.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1998Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
7.2 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 Self - Interviewee.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Hoodlum
Directed by Terry Gilliam
as Self - Interviewee
Directed by David A. Weiner
as Uniformed Officer
Directed by Paul Abascal
as Babo
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
as Lester
Directed by Steve De Jarnatt
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
Hoodlum
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hoodlum gives Tim Thomerson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self - Interviewee
In Search of Tomorrow (2022)
Performance score6.6
In Search of Tomorrow asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Interviewee is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Uniformed Officer
Paparazzi (2004)
Performance score6.5
Paparazzi asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Uniformed Officer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Babo
Air America (1990)
Performance score6.5
Air America asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Babo 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 Hoodlum
Start here. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the clearest statement of what Tim Thomerson does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tim 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.
Cherry 2000 (1987)
Keeps the adventure register of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but asks for a colder reading of it.
Air America (1990)
Keeps the action register of Cherry 2000 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Paparazzi (2004)
Keeps the action register of Air America but asks for a colder reading of it.
In Search of Tomorrow (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Paparazzi — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Honkytonk Man
Steve De Jarnatt
Director
1 film together
Notably Cherry 2000
Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together
Notably Air America
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together
Notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Paul Abascal
Director
1 film together
Notably Paparazzi
David A. Weiner
Director
1 film together
Notably In Search of Tomorrow
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fear and Loathing in Las VegasDavid A. Weiner
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In Search of TomorrowClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Honkytonk ManSteve De Jarnatt
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cherry 2000Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Air AmericaPaul Abascal
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PaparazziSix 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
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Honkytonk Man
as Highway Patrolman
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Paparazzi
as Uniformed Officer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
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. Tim Thomerson 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
40 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Honkytonk Man
as Highway Patrolman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Honkytonk Man
as Highway Patrolman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Cherry 2000
as Lester
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Hoodlum
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Honkytonk Man
as Highway Patrolman
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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