Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5216
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Darrin Baker 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.
Darrin Baker appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Darrin. Spotlight is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Eli Roth, Jon S. Baird, Don McBrearty and others, Darrin Baker 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.
Spotlight (2015) as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's · The Glass Castle (2017) as Pool Manager · My Spy (2020) as Dr. Weller
Career snapshot
Ranked #5216 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2015–2026
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Spotlight
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Spotlight
Most frequent director
Eli Roth
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Eli Roth
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Lucky Day, White Lie, The Glass Castle — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. Lucky Day, White Lie, The Glass Castle.
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 | 7.04 films | 4.52 films |
| Action | 5.41 film | 6.72 films |
| Thriller | 5.41 film | 5.31 film |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 5.56 films |
| Crime | 5.41 film | — |
| Romance | — | 5.81 film |
| Horror | — | 5.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Spotlight
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's. 7.8 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
2026Ice Cream Man
The current state of the argument, as Principal Maloney.
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 Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Directed by Tom McCarthy
as Pool Manager
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Dr. Weller
Directed by Peter Segal
as Hotel Manager
Directed by Unknown
as Principal Maloney
Directed by Eli Roth
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
Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Spotlight (2015)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's gives Darrin Baker a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Pool Manager
The Glass Castle (2017)
Performance score7.0
The Glass Castle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pool Manager is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dr. Weller
My Spy (2020)
Performance score6.8
My Spy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Weller is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Hotel Manager
Kodachrome (2017)
Performance score6.7
Kodachrome asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hotel Manager 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 Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Start here. Spotlight is the clearest statement of what Darrin Baker does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Darrin 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.
The Glass Castle (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Spotlight but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kodachrome (2017)
Keeps the drama register of The Glass Castle but asks for a colder reading of it.
My Spy (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Kodachrome but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ice Cream Man (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of My Spy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tom McCarthy
Director
1 film together
Notably Spotlight
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Glass Castle
Peter Segal
Director
1 film together
Notably My Spy
Patrick Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man from Toronto
Don McBrearty
Director
1 film together
Notably Christmas on Windmill Way
Jon S. Baird
Director
1 film together
Notably Everything's Going to Be Great
Eli Roth
Director
1 film together
Notably Ice Cream Man
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tom McCarthy
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpotlightDestin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Glass CastlePeter Segal
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My SpyPatrick Hughes
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man from TorontoJon S. Baird
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Everything's Going to Be GreatDon McBrearty
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Christmas on Windmill WayEli Roth
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ice Cream ManSix 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
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
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. Darrin Baker 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
7 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
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fear Street: Prom Queen
as Principal Wayland
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Man from Toronto
as Green Guy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Spotlight
as Middle Age Priest at St. Peter's
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Fear Street: Prom Queen
as Principal Wayland
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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