Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16889
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Daisy Tahan works on quiet performance 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.
Daisy Tahan appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daisy. Synecdoche, New York 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 quiet performance, versatility, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Shane Black, J.C. Chandor, Paul Weitz and others, Daisy Tahan 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.
Synecdoche, New York (2008) as Ariel · The Nice Guys (2016) as Jessica · A Most Violent Year (2014) as Annie Morales
Career snapshot
Ranked #16889 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2007–2016
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Synecdoche, New York
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Synecdoche, New York
Most frequent director
Shane Black
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Shane Black
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Synecdoche, New York, Then She Found Me — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
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
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Synecdoche, New York, Then She Found Me.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.52 films | 6.24 films |
| Action | — | 7.11 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.23 films |
| Comedy | 5.61 film | 6.42 films |
| Crime | — | 6.63 films |
| Romance | 5.61 film | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ruby.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2016The Nice Guys
The current state of the argument, as Jessica.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Jessica
Directed by Shane Black
as Annie Morales
Directed by J.C. Chandor
as Robin
Directed by Unknown
as Samantha Focker
Directed by Paul Weitz
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
Ariel
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ariel gives Daisy Tahan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jessica
The Nice Guys (2016)
Performance score7.0
The Nice Guys asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jessica is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Annie Morales
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Performance score6.6
A Most Violent Year asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Annie Morales is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Robin
Blood Ties (2013)
Performance score6.5
Blood Ties asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robin 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 Ariel
Start here. Synecdoche, New York is the clearest statement of what Daisy Tahan does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Daisy 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.
Little Fockers (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Synecdoche, New York — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Blood Ties (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Little Fockers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Keeps the crime register of Blood Ties but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Nice Guys (2016)
Keeps the crime register of A Most Violent Year but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Helen Hunt
Director
1 film together
Notably Then She Found Me
Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Synecdoche, New York
Don Roos
Director
1 film together
Notably The Other Woman
Paul Weitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Little Fockers
J.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together
Notably A Most Violent Year
Shane Black
Director
1 film together
Notably The Nice Guys
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Synecdoche, New YorkShane Black
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 Nice GuysJ.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Most Violent YearDon Roos
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Other WomanPaul Weitz
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Little FockersHelen Hunt
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Then She Found MeSix 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
Synecdoche, New York
as Ariel
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Then She Found Me
as Ruby
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Synecdoche, New York
as Ariel
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Synecdoche, New York
as Ariel
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Synecdoche, New York
as Ariel
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. Daisy Tahan 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 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
Synecdoche, New York
as Ariel
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Nice Guys
as Jessica
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Then She Found Me
as Ruby
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Most Violent Year
as Annie Morales
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Nice Guys
as Jessica
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Nice Guys
as Jessica
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Most Violent Year
as Annie Morales
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Little Fockers
as Samantha Focker
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: drama and thriller
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Leonardo DiCaprio
Built a career in the same territory: thriller and action
Robert De Niro
Built a career in the same territory: crime and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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