Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9145
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Damien Leake represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 45 years in, and Damien is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Damien Leake appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Damien. Apocalypse Now is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James McTeigue, Paul T. Scheuring, Jon Avnet and others, Damien Leake 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.
Apocalypse Now (1979) as Machine Gunner · Serpico (1973) as Joey · The Great Debaters (2007) as Wilson
Career snapshot
Ranked #9145 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1973–2018
Career length
45 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Apocalypse Now
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Apocalypse Now
Most frequent director
Francis Ford Coppola
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Francis Ford Coppola
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
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
6.9
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
1970s
7.5 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Apocalypse Now, Death Wish, Serpico — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Apocalypse Now, Death Wish, Serpico.
Most productive era
1980s
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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.53 films | 6.73 films | 6.21 film | 7.31 film | 6.41 film |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.91 film | 6.31 film | — | 5.91 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.21 film | 5.81 film | 6.22 films |
| Crime | 7.12 films | 6.52 films | 6.21 film | — | 5.91 film |
| Romance | — | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1973Serpico
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Joey.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1979Apocalypse Now
8.4 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
2018Breaking In
The current state of the argument, as Isaac.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Machine Gunner
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
as Joey
Directed by Sidney Lumet
as Patient - VA Hospital
Directed by Oliver Stone
as Tony
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
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
Machine Gunner
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Machine Gunner gives Damien Leake a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Wilson
The Great Debaters (2007)
Performance score7.2
The Great Debaters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Wilson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Joey
Serpico (1973)
Performance score7.2
Serpico asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Joey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Patient - VA Hospital
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Performance score6.9
Born on the Fourth of July asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patient - VA Hospital 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 Machine Gunner
Start here. Apocalypse Now is the clearest statement of what Damien Leake does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Damien 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.
Serpico (1973)
Keeps the drama register of Apocalypse Now but asks for a colder reading of it.
Highlander (1986)
A deliberate change of key after Serpico — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
A deliberate change of key after Highlander — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Great Debaters (2007)
Keeps the drama register of Born on the Fourth of July but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
2 films together
Notably Apocalypse Now
Sidney Lumet
Director
1 film together
Notably Serpico
Michael Winner
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Wish
Russell Mulcahy
Director
1 film together
Notably Highlander
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Born on the Fourth of July
Alan J. Pakula
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devil's Own
Ron Underwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Mighty Joe Young
Denzel Washington
Director
1 film together
Notably The Great Debaters
Jon Avnet
Director
1 film together
Notably 88 Minutes
Paul T. Scheuring
Director
1 film together
Notably The Experiment
James McTeigue
Director
1 film together
Notably Breaking In
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Apocalypse NowSidney Lumet
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SerpicoDenzel Washington
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Great DebatersOliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Born on the Fourth of JulyRussell Mulcahy
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HighlanderMichael Winner
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death WishPaul T. Scheuring
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ExperimentRon Underwood
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mighty Joe YoungAlan J. Pakula
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 Devil's OwnJames McTeigue
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Breaking InJon Avnet
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
88 MinutesSix 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
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sea of Love
as Ernest Lee
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Born on the Fourth of July
as Patient - VA Hospital
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
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. Damien Leake 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
45 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
9 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
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Serpico
as Joey
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sea of Love
as Ernest Lee
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
88 Minutes
as The Judge
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Highlander
as Tony
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Apocalypse Now
as Machine Gunner
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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