Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1409
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Damon Wayans Jr. works on versatility 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.
Damon Wayans Jr. appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Damon. Big Hero 6 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 comedy, romance, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Tiddes, Tyler Spindel, Anthony Russo and others, Damon Wayans Jr. 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.
Big Hero 6 (2014) as Wasabi (voice) · Cherry (2021) as Drill Sgt. Masters · Long Weekend (2021) as Doug
Career snapshot
Ranked #1409 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2010–2026
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Big Hero 6
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Big Hero 6
Most frequent director
Michael Tiddes
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Tiddes
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.3
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
6.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Scary Movie, Kinda Pregnant, Players — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.4
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Super Troopers 2, How to Be Single, Big Hero 6.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.31 film |
| Action | 7.22 films | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.46 films | 6.27 films |
| Crime | 5.91 film | 7.31 film |
| Romance | 6.31 film | 6.34 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010The Other Guys
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Fosse.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014Big Hero 6
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
2026Scary Movie
The current state of the argument, as Agent Underwood.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Wasabi (voice)
Directed by Chris Williams
as Doug
Directed by Stephen Basilone
as Drill Sgt. Masters
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Justin Chang
Directed by Unknown
as Nick
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson
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
Wasabi (voice)
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Wasabi (voice) gives Damon Wayans Jr. a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Doug
Long Weekend (2021)
Performance score7.3
Long Weekend asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Doug is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Drill Sgt. Masters
Cherry (2021)
Performance score7.2
Cherry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Drill Sgt. Masters is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Justin Chang
Let's Be Cops (2014)
Performance score7.0
Let's Be Cops asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Justin Chang 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 Wasabi (voice)
Start here. Big Hero 6 is the clearest statement of what Damon Wayans Jr. does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Damon 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.
Let's Be Cops (2014)
Keeps the comedy register of Big Hero 6 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Love, Guaranteed (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Let's Be Cops but asks for a colder reading of it.
Long Weekend (2021)
Keeps the romance register of Love, Guaranteed but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cherry (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Long Weekend — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Other Guys
Chris Williams
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Hero 6
Christian Ditter
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Be Single
Jay Chandrasekhar
Director
1 film together
Notably Super Troopers 2
Mark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Love, Guaranteed
Stephen Basilone
Director
1 film together
Notably Long Weekend
Teppo Airaksinen
Director
1 film together
Notably Supercool
Josh Greenbaum
Director
1 film together
Notably Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Cherry
Tyler Spindel
Director
1 film together
Notably Kinda Pregnant
Michael Tiddes
Director
1 film together
Notably Scary Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Chris Williams
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big Hero 6Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CherryStephen Basilone
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Long WeekendMichael Tiddes
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scary MovieMark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love, GuaranteedChristian Ditter
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Be SingleAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Other GuysJosh Greenbaum
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del MarJay Chandrasekhar
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Super Troopers 2Teppo Airaksinen
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupercoolTyler Spindel
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kinda PregnantSix 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
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (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
Long Weekend
as Doug
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Scary Movie
as Agent Underwood
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (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. Damon Wayans Jr. 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 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
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Long Weekend
as Doug
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Super Troopers 2
as Wagner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Big Hero 6
as Wasabi (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Scary Movie
as Agent Underwood
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Mark Ruffalo
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Harvey Keitel
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Damon Wayans Jr. performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
