Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#41568
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Darren Richardson 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.
Darren Richardson appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Darren. Missing Link 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, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Chris Columbus, Glenn Danzig, Chris Butler and others, Darren Richardson 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.
Missing Link (2019) as Alfie (voice) · A Good Year (2006) as (voice) · The Thursday Murder Club (2025) as Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #41568 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Missing Link
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
Missing Link
Most frequent director
Chris Columbus
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Chris Columbus
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.2
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. A Good Year — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
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. A Good Year.
Most productive era
2010s
2 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 | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Action | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.41 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 6.91 film | 6.61 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.41 film | 3.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2006A Good Year
Where our catalogue meets this career, as (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Missing Link
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
The current state of the argument, as Lawyer (Voice Over) (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.
5 of 5 films
as Alfie (voice)
Directed by Chris Butler
as Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
Directed by Chris Columbus
as (voice)
Directed by Ridley Scott
as Duke Von Wayne
Directed by Glenn Danzig
as British Gallery Owner
Directed by Unknown
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
Alfie (voice)
Missing Link (2019)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Alfie (voice) gives Darren Richardson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
The Thursday Murder Club (2025)
Performance score6.6
The Thursday Murder Club asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
(voice)
A Good Year (2006)
Performance score6.6
A Good Year asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Duke Von Wayne
Death Rider in the House of Vampires (2021)
Performance score6.5
Death Rider in the House of Vampires asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Duke Von Wayne 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 Alfie (voice)
Start here. Missing Link is the clearest statement of what Darren Richardson does — accessible, 94 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Darren 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.
A Good Year (2006)
Keeps the comedy register of Missing Link but asks for a colder reading of it.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
A deliberate change of key after A Good Year — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Death Rider in the House of Vampires (2021)
Keeps the horror register of Velvet Buzzsaw but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Thursday Murder Club (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Death Rider in the House of Vampires — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably A Good Year
Chris Butler
Director
1 film together
Notably Missing Link
Glenn Danzig
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Rider in the House of Vampires
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thursday Murder Club
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Chris Butler
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Missing LinkRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Good YearChris Columbus
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 Thursday Murder ClubGlenn Danzig
Director
1 film together · 3.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death Rider in the House of VampiresSix 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
A Good Year
as (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
A Good Year
as (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
Missing Link
as Alfie (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Good Year
as (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Missing Link
as Alfie (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. Darren Richardson 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
The Thursday Murder Club
as Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Thursday Murder Club
as Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Good Year
as (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Thursday Murder Club
as Lawyer (Voice Over) (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Missing Link
as Alfie (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Missing Link
as Alfie (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Missing Link
as Alfie (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Death Rider in the House of Vampires
as Duke Von Wayne
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
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Darren Richardson performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
