Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7057
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Dana Millican 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.
Dana Millican appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dana. Lean on Pete 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, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, thriller, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Benjamin Caron, Michael Patrick Jann, Michael Sarnoski and others, Dana Millican 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.
Lean on Pete (2018) as Woman Driver · Leave No Trace (2018) as Jean · Bad Samaritan (2018) as Female Cop
Career snapshot
Ranked #7057 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2017–2026
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Lean on Pete
Average Nutevio score
5.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
Lean on Pete
Most frequent director
Benjamin Caron
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Benjamin Caron
Most common genre
Thriller
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.1
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Leave No Trace, Bad Samaritan, Lean on Pete — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Leave No Trace, Bad Samaritan, Lean on Pete.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 6.84 films | 4.74 films |
| Thriller | 6.72 films | 4.16 films |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 6.51 film |
| Crime | 6.72 films | 3.02 films |
| Horror | 6.71 film | 3.93 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Giggles.
Highest rated performance
2018Lean on Pete
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2018Leave No Trace
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Josephine
The current state of the argument, as Ms. Hoffman.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Woman Driver
Directed by Andrew Haigh
as Kim
Directed by Unknown
as Nurse
Directed by Michael Sarnoski
as Female Cop
Directed by Dean Devlin
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
Jean
Leave No Trace (2018)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jean gives Dana Millican a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Woman Driver
Lean on Pete (2018)
Performance score6.8
Lean on Pete asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Woman Driver is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kim
Soft & Quiet (2022)
Performance score6.6
Soft & Quiet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kim is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nurse
Pig (2021)
Performance score6.6
Pig asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nurse 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 Jean
Start here. Leave No Trace is the clearest statement of what Dana Millican does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dana 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.
Lean on Pete (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Leave No Trace but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bad Samaritan (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Lean on Pete but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pig (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Bad Samaritan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Soft & Quiet (2022)
Keeps the thriller register of Pig but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Macon Blair
Director
1 film together
Notably I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
Andrew Haigh
Director
1 film together
Notably Lean on Pete
Dean Devlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Samaritan
Debra Granik
Director
1 film together
Notably Leave No Trace
Michael Sarnoski
Director
1 film together
Notably Pig
Michael Patrick Jann
Director
1 film together
Notably Alma & the Wolf
Benjamin Caron
Director
1 film together
Notably Night Always Comes
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Andrew Haigh
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lean on PeteDebra Granik
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Leave No TraceDean Devlin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad SamaritanMichael Sarnoski
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PigMacon Blair
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Don't Feel at Home in This World AnymoreBenjamin Caron
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night Always ComesMichael Patrick Jann
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alma & the WolfSix 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
Lean on Pete
as Woman Driver
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Leave No Trace
as Jean
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Lean on Pete
as Woman Driver
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
as Giggles
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Leave No Trace
as Jean
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. Dana Millican 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Pig
as Nurse
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Bad Samaritan
as Female Cop
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Leave No Trace
as Jean
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Pig
as Nurse
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Lean on Pete
as Woman Driver
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Lean on Pete
as Woman Driver
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
as Giggles
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Alma & the Wolf
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: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Richmond Arquette
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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