Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7178
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
David A. Kaye represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and David is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
David A. Kaye appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Another Sweet Christmas is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 romance, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Robison, Joe Menendez, Paula Elle and others, David A. Kaye 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.
Another Sweet Christmas (2025) as Chris · My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip (2019) as Pickle Barrel (voice) · Light of the World (2025) as Judas Iscariot (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7178 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1994–2026
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Another Sweet Christmas
Average Nutevio score
7.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Another Sweet Christmas
Most frequent director
Michael Robison
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Robison
Most common genre
Romance
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.3
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
7.4
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
2010s
9.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
9.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
9.0
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. Legends of the Fall.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 7.31 film | — | — | 7.34 films |
| Action | — | 5.91 film | — | 7.02 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.91 film | — | 7.83 films |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Romance | 7.31 film | — | — | 7.44 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Samuel Decker.
First Nutevio masterpiece
2019My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
10.0 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
2026Two for Tee
The current state of the argument, as Theo.
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 Chris
Directed by Paula Elle
as Pickle Barrel (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Judas Iscariot (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Theo
Directed by Michael Robison
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
Chris
Another Sweet Christmas (2025)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Chris gives David A. Kaye a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Pickle Barrel (voice)
My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip (2019)
Performance score8.6
My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pickle Barrel (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Judas Iscariot (voice)
Light of the World (2025)
Performance score8.5
Light of the World asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judas Iscariot (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Edison
Sol (2020)
Performance score8.0
Sol asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Edison 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 Chris
Start here. Another Sweet Christmas is the clearest statement of what David A. Kaye does — accessible, 99 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David 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.
My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Another Sweet Christmas — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Sol (2020)
Same director as My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Light of the World (2025)
Same director as Sol, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Two for Tee (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Light of the World but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Legends of the Fall
Mark Jean
Director
1 film together
Notably Love, Lights, Hanukkah!
Henrique Jardim
Director
1 film together
Notably Ben 10,010
Peter DeLuise
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wedding Contract
Paula Elle
Director
1 film together
Notably Another Sweet Christmas
Joe Menendez
Director
1 film together
Notably Henry Danger: The Movie
Michael Robison
Director
1 film together
Notably Two for Tee
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paula Elle
Director
1 film together · 10.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Another Sweet ChristmasJoe 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 MovieMichael Robison
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Two for TeeEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legends of the FallMark Jean
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love, Lights, Hanukkah!Henrique Jardim
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ben 10,010Peter DeLuise
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wedding ContractSix 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
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Light of the World
as Judas Iscariot (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
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Legends of the Fall
as Samuel Decker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
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. David A. Kaye 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
32 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.
Romance Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in romance, 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
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Two for Tee
as Theo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Another Sweet Christmas
as Chris
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
3000 Miles to Graceland
as Jesse Waingrow
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Light of the World
as Judas Iscariot (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Golden Delicious
as Sports Announcer
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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