Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13346
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David de Vries represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 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 de Vries appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Captain America: Civil War is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 drama, war, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ron Howard, Todd Robinson, Clint Eastwood and others, David de Vries 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.
Captain America: Civil War (2016) as Custodian · Remember the Titans (2000) as Parent · Richard Jewell (2019) as John Walter
Career snapshot
Ranked #13346 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2000–2026
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Captain America: Civil War
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Remember the Titans
Most frequent director
Ron Howard
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ron Howard
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
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
6.5
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
7.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Richard Jewell, Captain America: Civil War, The Accountant — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.2
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.2
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. Leatherheads, Remember the Titans.
Most productive era
2010s
5 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 | 7.14 films | 6.82 films |
| Action | — | 7.71 film | 7.01 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.92 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 7.13 films | — |
| Romance | 6.11 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Parent.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2016Captain America: Civil War
7.7 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
2026The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg
The current state of the argument, as Red Leghorn.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Custodian
Directed by Anthony Russo
as John Walter
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Widower
Directed by Gavin O'Connor
as Jack Horford
Directed by John Lee Hancock
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
Custodian
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Custodian gives David de Vries a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Parent
Remember the Titans (2000)
Performance score7.4
Remember the Titans asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Parent is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
John Walter
Richard Jewell (2019)
Performance score7.2
Richard Jewell asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. John Walter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Widower
The Accountant (2016)
Performance score7.2
The Accountant asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Widower 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 Custodian
Start here. Captain America: Civil War is the clearest statement of what David de Vries does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 7.7 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.
Remember the Titans (2000)
A deliberate change of key after Captain America: Civil War — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Accountant (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Remember the Titans but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Founder (2016)
Keeps the drama register of The Accountant but asks for a colder reading of it.
Richard Jewell (2019)
Keeps the drama register of The Founder but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Boaz Yakin
Director
1 film together
Notably Remember the Titans
George Clooney
Director
1 film together
Notably Leatherheads
Michael Cuesta
Director
1 film together
Notably Kill the Messenger
John Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together
Notably The Founder
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Accountant
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Captain America: Civil War
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Richard Jewell
Todd Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Full Measure
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Hillbilly Elegy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captain America: Civil WarBoaz Yakin
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Remember the TitansClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Richard JewellGavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AccountantJohn Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FounderTodd Robinson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last Full MeasureRon 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
Hillbilly ElegyMichael Cuesta
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kill the MessengerGeorge Clooney
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LeatherheadsSix 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
Captain America: Civil War
as Custodian
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Founder
as Jack Horford
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Remember the Titans
as Parent
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Remember the Titans
as Parent
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Captain America: Civil War
as Custodian
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 de Vries 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
26 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 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
Remember the Titans
as Parent
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Accountant
as Widower
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Founder
as Jack Horford
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Kill the Messenger
as Washington Post Editor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Captain America: Civil War
as Custodian
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Captain America: Civil War
as Custodian
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Leatherheads
as Princeton Reporter
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Captain America: Civil War
as Custodian
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
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Reference
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