Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2089
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Daran Norris represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Daran is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Daran Norris appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daran. Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 comedy, animation, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Genndy Tartakovsky, Joe Menendez, Jared Hess and others, Daran Norris 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.
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006) as Count Spankulot (voice) · Henry Danger: The Movie (2025) as Narrator (voice) · Thelma the Unicorn (2024) as Stable Hand (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2089 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2000–2025
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Most frequent director
Genndy Tartakovsky
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Genndy Tartakovsky
Most common genre
Family
8 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
7.0
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
6.6
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
2020s
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Fixed, Henry Danger: The Movie, Thelma the Unicorn — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.8
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. Bolt, Ben 10: Race Against Time, Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O..
Most productive era
2000s
6 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 | 6.82 films | 6.61 film | — |
| Action | 7.02 films | — | 7.61 film |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | — | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | 6.73 films | 6.61 film | 6.92 films |
| Crime | — | 6.61 film | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2000Dinosaur
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Additional Voices (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
8.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Narrator (voice).
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 Count Spankulot (voice)
Directed by Tom Warburton
as Narrator (voice)
Directed by Joe Menendez
as Stable Hand (voice)
Directed by Jared Hess
as Red Sox Replay
Directed by Todd Field
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
Count Spankulot (voice)
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Count Spankulot (voice) gives Daran Norris a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Narrator (voice)
Henry Danger: The Movie (2025)
Performance score7.4
Henry Danger: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Narrator (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Stable Hand (voice)
Thelma the Unicorn (2024)
Performance score6.8
Thelma the Unicorn asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stable Hand (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Roger / Radio DJ (voice)
Seal Team (2021)
Performance score6.8
Seal Team asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roger / Radio DJ (voice) 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 Count Spankulot (voice)
Start here. Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. is the clearest statement of what Daran Norris does — accessible, 73 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Daran 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.
In the Bedroom (2001)
A deliberate change of key after Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Seal Team (2021)
A deliberate change of key after In the Bedroom — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Thelma the Unicorn (2024)
Keeps the family register of Seal Team but asks for a colder reading of it.
Henry Danger: The Movie (2025)
Keeps the family register of Thelma the Unicorn but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Todd Field
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Bedroom
Bo Welch
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cat in the Hat
Tom Warburton
Director
1 film together
Notably Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Alex Winter
Director
1 film together
Notably Ben 10: Race Against Time
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Bolt
Rob Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably Veronica Mars
David Fincher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Killer
Jared Hess
Director
1 film together
Notably Thelma the Unicorn
Joe Menendez
Director
1 film together
Notably Henry Danger: The Movie
Genndy Tartakovsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Fixed
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tom Warburton
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.Joe Menendez
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Henry Danger: The MovieJared Hess
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thelma the UnicornTodd Field
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the BedroomByron Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BoltDavid Fincher
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 KillerRob Thomas
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Veronica MarsGenndy Tartakovsky
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FixedAlex Winter
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ben 10: Race Against TimeBo Welch
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Cat in the HatSix 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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Thelma the Unicorn
as Stable Hand (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Henry Danger: The Movie
as Narrator (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
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. Daran Norris 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
25 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.
Family Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in family, 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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Thelma the Unicorn
as Stable Hand (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Count Spankulot (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bolt
as Louie (voice)
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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Bob Stephenson
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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