Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4933
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ben Diskin represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Ben is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ben Diskin appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ben. Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 action, science fiction, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jeff Wamester, Daniel Chong, Jørgen Klubien and others, Ben Diskin 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.
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006) as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice) · We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020) as Additional Voices (voice) · Secret of the Wings (2012) as Glacier Fairy (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #4933 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1987–2023
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Most frequent director
Jeff Wamester
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jeff Wamester
Most common genre
Animation
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 21m
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
6.5
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief, Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. Baby Boom.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.41 film | — | — | — | — |
| Action | — | — | 8.01 film | — | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 6.11 film | 6.72 films | 5.22 films | 7.51 film |
| Romance | 6.41 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987Baby Boom
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ben.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
8.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Arms Fall Off Boy / Brainiac 2 (voice).
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.
11 of 11 films
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Directed by Tom Warburton
as Yodel (voice)
Directed by Jørgen Klubien
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Daniel Chong
as Glacier Fairy (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Arms Fall Off Boy / Brainiac 2 (voice)
Directed by Jeff Wamester
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
Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006)
Performance score8.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice) gives Ben Diskin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yodel (voice)
The Academy of Magic (2020)
Performance score7.5
The Academy of Magic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yodel (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Additional Voices (voice)
We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020)
Performance score7.3
We Bare Bears: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Glacier Fairy (voice)
Secret of the Wings (2012)
Performance score7.2
Secret of the Wings asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Glacier Fairy (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 Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Start here. Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. is the clearest statement of what Ben Diskin does — accessible, 73 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ben 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.
Secret of the Wings (2012)
Keeps the fantasy register of Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Academy of Magic (2020)
Keeps the fantasy register of Secret of the Wings but asks for a colder reading of it.
We Bare Bears: The Movie (2020)
Keeps the family register of The Academy of Magic but asks for a colder reading of it.
Legion of Super-Heroes (2023)
Keeps the animation register of We Bare Bears: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Charles Shyer
Director
1 film together
Notably Baby Boom
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Kindergarten Cop
Tom Warburton
Director
1 film together
Notably Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Craig Shapiro
Director
1 film together
Notably Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief
Vivienne Medrano
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Luck Jack
Jørgen Klubien
Director
1 film together
Notably The Academy of Magic
Daniel Chong
Director
1 film together
Notably We Bare Bears: The Movie
Jeff Wamester
Director
1 film together
Notably Legion of Super-Heroes
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tom Warburton
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.Daniel Chong
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
We Bare Bears: The MovieJørgen Klubien
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 Academy of MagicJeff Wamester
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legion of Super-HeroesCharles Shyer
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Baby BoomIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kindergarten CopCraig Shapiro
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the ChiefVivienne Medrano
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad Luck JackSix 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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (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
Secret of the Wings
as Glacier Fairy (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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kindergarten Cop
as Sylvester
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (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. Ben Diskin 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
36 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in animation, 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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Academy of Magic
as Yodel (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Nigel 'Numbuh 1' Uno / Hoagie Pennywhistle 'Numbuh 2' Gilligan Jr / Numbuh 101 (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Secret of the Wings
as Glacier Fairy (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Tom Wilkinson
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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