Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4441
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Troy Evans represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Troy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Troy Evans appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Troy. The Book of Life 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jorge R. Gutierrez, Chris Wedge, Michael Chang and others, Troy Evans 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.
The Book of Life (2014) as Old Man Hemingway (voice) · Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) as Police Chief · Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) as Antisocial Trucker
Career snapshot
Ranked #4441 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1985–2024
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
The Book of Life
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Book of Life
Most frequent director
Jorge R. Gutierrez
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jorge R. Gutierrez
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.7
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Book of Life, Epic, Superman vs. The Elite — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Teen Wolf.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | 5.61 film | — | 5.61 film |
| Action | — | 6.32 films | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | — | 5.61 film |
| Comedy | 6.82 films | 6.55 films | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.34 films | — | — | 5.61 film |
| Romance | 6.31 film | 6.51 film | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.32 films | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1985Teen Wolf
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dragon Basketball Coach.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014The Book of Life
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
2024He Went That Way
The current state of the argument, as Hank.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Old Man Hemingway (voice)
Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez
as Police Chief
Directed by Terry Gilliam
as Pundit (voice)
Directed by Michael Chang
as Sheriff Perry
Directed by Peter Jackson
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
Old Man Hemingway (voice)
The Book of Life (2014)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Old Man Hemingway (voice) gives Troy Evans a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Police Chief
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Performance score7.1
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Police Chief is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Antisocial Trucker
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Performance score7.1
Planes, Trains and Automobiles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Antisocial Trucker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pundit (voice)
Superman vs. The Elite (2012)
Performance score6.8
Superman vs. The Elite asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pundit (voice) 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 Old Man Hemingway (voice)
Start here. The Book of Life is the clearest statement of what Troy Evans does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Troy 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.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
A deliberate change of key after The Book of Life — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Frighteners (1996)
Keeps the comedy register of Planes, Trains and Automobiles but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Keeps the comedy register of The Frighteners but asks for a colder reading of it.
Superman vs. The Elite (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Rod Daniel
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Wolf
John Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Emilio Estevez
Director
1 film together
Notably Men at Work
Bruce A. Evans
Director
1 film together
Notably Kuffs
Marco Brambilla
Director
1 film together
Notably Demolition Man
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together
Notably Phenomenon
Peter Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Frighteners
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together
Notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Will Finn
Director
1 film together
Notably Home on the Range
Michael Chang
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman vs. The Elite
Chris Wedge
Director
1 film together
Notably Epic
Jorge R. Gutierrez
Director
1 film together
Notably The Book of Life
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jorge R. Gutierrez
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Book of LifeTerry 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 VegasJohn Hughes
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Planes, Trains and AutomobilesMichael Chang
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superman vs. The ElitePeter Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FrightenersMarco Brambilla
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Demolition ManTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ace Ventura: Pet DetectiveChris Wedge
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EpicJon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PhenomenonRod Daniel
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen WolfWill Finn
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Home on the RangeBruce A. Evans
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
KuffsEmilio Estevez
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Men at WorkSix 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 Police Chief
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 Book of Life
as Old Man Hemingway (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Book of Life
as Old Man Hemingway (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
as Antisocial Trucker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Book of Life
as Old Man Hemingway (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. Troy Evans 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
The Book of Life
as Old Man Hemingway (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Roger Podacter
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Book of Life
as Old Man Hemingway (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Roger Podacter
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Superman vs. The Elite
as Pundit (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Superman vs. The Elite
as Pundit (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Police Chief
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Roger Podacter
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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