Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7537
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Daniel Lapaine 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.
Daniel Lapaine appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daniel. Zero Dark Thirty is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 horror, drama, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tony Tilse, Bryan Singer, Kathryn Bigelow and others, Daniel Lapaine 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.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) as Tim - Station Chief · Dangerous Beauty (1998) as Serafino Franco · Double Jeopardy (1999) as Handsome Internet Expert
Career snapshot
Ranked #7537 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1998–2022
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Zero Dark Thirty
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Dangerous Beauty
Most frequent director
Tony Tilse
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tony Tilse
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
1990s
6.5 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Brokedown Palace, Double Jeopardy, 54 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Brokedown Palace, Double Jeopardy, 54.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.31 film | 6.33 films | 5.42 films |
| Action | — | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.52 films | — | 6.52 films | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | 7.01 film | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 4.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
199854
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Marc the Doorman.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1998Dangerous Beauty
7.0 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
2022She Will
The current state of the argument, as Keith.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Tim - Station Chief
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
as Serafino Franco
Directed by Marshall Herskovitz
as Nick Parks
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
as Handsome Internet Expert
Directed by Bruce Beresford
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
Tim - Station Chief
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tim - Station Chief gives Daniel Lapaine a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Serafino Franco
Dangerous Beauty (1998)
Performance score6.9
Dangerous Beauty asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Serafino Franco is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nick Parks
Brokedown Palace (1999)
Performance score6.7
Brokedown Palace asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nick Parks is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Handsome Internet Expert
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Performance score6.6
Double Jeopardy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Handsome Internet Expert 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 Tim - Station Chief
Start here. Zero Dark Thirty is the clearest statement of what Daniel Lapaine does — accessible, 157 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Daniel 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.
Dangerous Beauty (1998)
Keeps the drama register of Zero Dark Thirty but asks for a colder reading of it.
Brokedown Palace (1999)
Keeps the drama register of Dangerous Beauty but asks for a colder reading of it.
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Keeps the mystery register of Brokedown Palace but asks for a colder reading of it.
She Will (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Double Jeopardy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Marshall Herskovitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Dangerous Beauty
Mark Christopher
Director
1 film together
Notably 54
Bruce Beresford
Director
1 film together
Notably Double Jeopardy
Jonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together
Notably Brokedown Palace
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably Shanghai
Kathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together
Notably Zero Dark Thirty
Bryan Singer
Director
1 film together
Notably Jack the Giant Slayer
Tony Tilse
Director
1 film together
Notably Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Kathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Zero Dark ThirtyMarshall Herskovitz
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dangerous BeautyBruce Beresford
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Double JeopardyJonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brokedown PalaceTony Tilse
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miss Fisher and the Crypt of TearsMikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShanghaiMark Christopher
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
54Bryan Singer
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jack the Giant SlayerSix 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
Dangerous Beauty
as Serafino Franco
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dangerous Beauty
as Serafino Franco
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dangerous Beauty
as Serafino Franco
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Zero Dark Thirty
as Tim - Station Chief
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Zero Dark Thirty
as Tim - Station Chief
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. Daniel Lapaine 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
24 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
Double Jeopardy
as Handsome Internet Expert
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Double Jeopardy
as Handsome Internet Expert
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Last Chance Harvey
as Scott Wright
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Shanghai
as Ted (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Jack the Giant Slayer
as Jack's Dad
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Jack the Giant Slayer
as Jack's Dad
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Jack the Giant Slayer
as Jack's Dad
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
54
as Marc the Doorman
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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