Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2418
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Dan Bakkedahl 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.
Dan Bakkedahl appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dan. Trumbo is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 science fiction, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Dowse, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Steven Brand and others, Dan Bakkedahl 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.
Trumbo (2015) as Roy Brewer · Wyrm (2019) as Allen · Swiped (2025) as Ed
Career snapshot
Ranked #2418 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2009–2026
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Trumbo
Average Nutevio score
4.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Trumbo
Most frequent director
Josh Duhamel
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Josh Duhamel
Most common genre
Comedy
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
5.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Observe and Report — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
5.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
5.4
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. Observe and Report.
Most productive era
2010s
10 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.41 film | 6.32 films | 3.32 films |
| Action | — | 6.61 film | 2.82 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.61 film |
| Comedy | 5.41 film | 5.29 films | 2.54 films |
| Crime | 5.41 film | 6.61 film | 5.61 film |
| Romance | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Horror | — | 4.81 film | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mark.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Trumbo
7.2 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
2026The Stunt Driver
The current state of the argument.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Ed
Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg
as Wilbur Finletter
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
Roy Brewer
Trumbo (2015)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Roy Brewer gives Dan Bakkedahl a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Allen
Wyrm (2019)
Performance score6.7
Wyrm asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Allen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ed
Swiped (2025)
Performance score6.6
Swiped asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ed is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Craig
The Heat (2013)
Performance score6.6
The Heat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Craig 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 Roy Brewer
Start here. Trumbo is the clearest statement of what Dan Bakkedahl does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dan 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 Heat (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Trumbo — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Wyrm (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of The Heat but asks for a colder reading of it.
Swiped (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Wyrm — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Swiped — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Josh Duhamel
Director
2 films together
Notably Buddy Games: Spring Awakening
Jody Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Observe and Report
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably This Is 40
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably The Heat
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Trumbo
Etan Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Get Hard
Tim Kirkby
Director
1 film together
Notably Action Point
Patrick Brice
Director
1 film together
Notably Corporate Animals
Lynn Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably Sword of Trust
Steven Brand
Director
1 film together
Notably Joe Baby
Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Swiped
Michael Dowse
Director
1 film together
Notably The Stunt Driver
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Josh Duhamel
Director
2 films together · 5.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Buddy Games: Spring AwakeningJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TrumboRachel Lee Goldenberg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SwipedPaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HeatLynn Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sword of TrustEtan Cohen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Get HardJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Is 40Steven Brand
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joe BabyTim Kirkby
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Action PointJody Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Observe and ReportPatrick Brice
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Corporate AnimalsMichael Dowse
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Stunt DriverSix 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
Trumbo
as Roy Brewer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Swiped
as Ed
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Trumbo
as Roy Brewer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
This Is 40
as Dentist
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Trumbo
as Roy Brewer
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. Dan Bakkedahl 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
14 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
Trumbo
as Roy Brewer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Heat
as Craig
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Swiped
as Ed
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Joe Baby
as Art Simonian
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Heat
as Craig
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Heat
as Craig
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Observe and Report
as Mark
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Buddy Games: Spring Awakening
as Shelly
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
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Reference
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