Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#53839
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Dan Hirst 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 Hirst appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dan. Chappie is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, action. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kelsey Egan, Anthony Hemingway, Uli Edel, Dan Hirst 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.
Chappie (2015) as Merc · Red Tails (2012) as German Ground Soldier · Ring of the Nibelungs (2004)
Career snapshot
Ranked #53839 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2004–2024
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Chappie
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
Chappie
Most frequent director
Kelsey Egan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Kelsey Egan
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
6.4
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
2010s
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Dark Tower, Chappie, Red Tails — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
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. Ring of the Nibelungs.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | — | 6.61 film | — |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.52 films | 5.81 film |
| Crime | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Chappie
6.9 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
2024The Fix
The current state of the argument, as Aethera Corp Perimeter Guard.
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.
5 of 5 films
as German Ground Soldier
Directed by Anthony Hemingway
as Aethera Corp Perimeter Guard
Directed by Kelsey Egan
as Village Engineer
Directed by Unknown
Directed by Uli Edel
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
Merc
Chappie (2015)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Merc gives Dan Hirst a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
German Ground Soldier
Red Tails (2012)
Performance score6.6
Red Tails asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. German Ground Soldier is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Aethera Corp Perimeter Guard
The Fix (2024)
Performance score6.5
The Fix asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aethera Corp Perimeter Guard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Village Engineer
The Dark Tower (2017)
Performance score6.5
The Dark Tower asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Village Engineer 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 Merc
Start here. Chappie is the clearest statement of what Dan Hirst does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 6.9 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.
Ring of the Nibelungs (2004)
Keeps the action register of Chappie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Red Tails (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Ring of the Nibelungs — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Dark Tower (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Red Tails — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Fix (2024)
Keeps the action register of The Dark Tower but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Anthony Hemingway
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red TailsUli Edel
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ring of the NibelungsKelsey Egan
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FixSix 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
Chappie
as Merc
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Red Tails
as German Ground Soldier
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Chappie
as Merc
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Chappie
as Merc
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Chappie
as Merc
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 Hirst 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
20 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in action, 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
Chappie
as Merc
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Chappie
as Merc
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Red Tails
as German Ground Soldier
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ring of the Nibelungs
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Chappie
as Merc
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ring of the Nibelungs
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Red Tails
as German Ground Soldier
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Fix
as Aethera Corp Perimeter Guard
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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