Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alan David appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alan. The Painted Veil is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Euros Lyn, Álex de la Iglesia, John Curran and others, Alan David 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 Painted Veil (2006) as Mr. Garstin · Dream Horse (2021) as Bert · Wimbledon (2004) as Doctor Taylor
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Alan David.
Films in Nutevio
5
2000–2021
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Painted Veil
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Painted Veil
Most frequent director
Euros Lyn
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Euros Lyn
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
2020s
6.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Dream Horse — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
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. The Oxford Murders, The Painted Veil, Wimbledon.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.31 film | 6.71 film |
| Crime | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 6.53 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Welsh Teacher.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006The Painted Veil
7.1 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
2021Dream Horse
The current state of the argument, as Bert.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Mr. Garstin
Directed by John Curran
as Bert
Directed by Euros Lyn
as Mr. Higgins
Directed by Álex de la Iglesia
as Doctor Taylor
Directed by Richard Loncraine
as Welsh Teacher
Directed by Unknown
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
Mr. Garstin
The Painted Veil (2006)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mr. Garstin gives Alan David a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bert
Dream Horse (2021)
Performance score6.6
Dream Horse asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bert is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Higgins
The Oxford Murders (2008)
Performance score6.5
The Oxford Murders asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Higgins is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Doctor Taylor
Wimbledon (2004)
Performance score6.5
Wimbledon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Doctor Taylor 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 Mr. Garstin
Start here. The Painted Veil is the clearest statement of what Alan David does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alan 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.
The Man Who Cried (2000)
Keeps the romance register of The Painted Veil but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wimbledon (2004)
Keeps the romance register of The Man Who Cried but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Oxford Murders (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Wimbledon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dream Horse (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Oxford Murders — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Richard Loncraine
Director
1 film together
Notably Wimbledon
John Curran
Director
1 film together
Notably The Painted Veil
Álex de la Iglesia
Director
1 film together
Notably The Oxford Murders
Euros Lyn
Director
1 film together
Notably Dream Horse
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Curran
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Painted VeilEuros Lyn
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dream HorseRichard Loncraine
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WimbledonÁlex de la Iglesia
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Oxford MurdersSix 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
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
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 Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
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 Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Wimbledon
as Doctor Taylor
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
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. Alan David 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 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
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Oxford Murders
as Mr. Higgins
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Oxford Murders
as Mr. Higgins
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Painted Veil
as Mr. Garstin
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Oxford Murders
as Mr. Higgins
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Bob Stephenson
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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