Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8684
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Daniel Zolghadri 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 Zolghadri appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daniel. Ready Player One is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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 drama, thriller, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alex Russell, Kyle Mooney, Owen Kline and others, Daniel Zolghadri 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.
Ready Player One (2018) as High School Kid · Eighth Grade (2018) as Riley · Alex Strangelove (2018) as Dell
Career snapshot
Ranked #8684 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2018–2026
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Ready Player One
Average Nutevio score
4.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Ready Player One
Most frequent director
Alex Russell
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alex Russell
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 26m
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Low Tide, Fahrenheit 451, Eighth Grade — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Low Tide, Fahrenheit 451, Eighth Grade.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 6.43 films | 3.24 films |
| Action | 7.61 film | — |
| Thriller | 5.82 films | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.92 films | 5.42 films |
| Horror | — | 5.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018Fahrenheit 451
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Clifford.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Ready Player One
7.6 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
2026Fennel
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.
12 of 12 films
as High School Kid
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Riley
Directed by Bo Burnham
as Dell
Directed by Craig Johnson
as Noah
Directed by Alex Russell
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
High School Kid
Ready Player One (2018)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. High School Kid gives Daniel Zolghadri a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Riley
Eighth Grade (2018)
Performance score7.3
Eighth Grade asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Riley is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dell
Alex Strangelove (2018)
Performance score6.8
Alex Strangelove asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dell is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Noah
Lurker (2025)
Performance score6.6
Lurker asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Noah 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 High School Kid
Start here. Ready Player One is the clearest statement of what Daniel Zolghadri does — accessible, 140 minutes, and rated 7.6 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.
Eighth Grade (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Ready Player One — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Alex Strangelove (2018)
Keeps the comedy register of Eighth Grade but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lurker (2025)
Keeps the drama register of Alex Strangelove but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hot Water (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Lurker but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Craig Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Alex Strangelove
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Ready Player One
Bo Burnham
Director
1 film together
Notably Eighth Grade
Ramin Bahrani
Director
1 film together
Notably Fahrenheit 451
Owen Kline
Director
1 film together
Notably Funny Pages
Kyle Mooney
Director
1 film together
Notably Y2K
Alex Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably Lurker
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ready Player OneBo Burnham
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eighth GradeCraig Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alex StrangeloveAlex Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LurkerOwen Kline
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Funny PagesRamin Bahrani
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fahrenheit 451Kyle Mooney
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Y2KSix 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
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
as Stephen
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
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 Zolghadri 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 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
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
as Stephen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Low Tide
as Smitty
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ready Player One
as High School Kid
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Eighth Grade
as Riley
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Low Tide
as Smitty
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
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Roy Scheider
Works with the same directors — Steven Spielberg
Have your say
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Reference
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