Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1221
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
David Kaye represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 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 Kaye appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie is the clearest case: a film rated 9.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jeff Wamester, Ken Cunningham, Terry Ingram and others, David 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.
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie (2021) as Clank (voice) · Up (2009) as Newsreel Announcer (voice) · Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024) as Additional Voices (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1221 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1996–2024
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.0
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.0
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
Most frequent director
Jeff Wamester
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Jeff Wamester
Most common genre
Animation
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 19m
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
6.8
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
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Up, The Ant Bully — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.0
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
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. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie, Happy Gilmore.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | — | — | — | 7.21 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.74 films | 6.99 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 7.02 films | 7.21 film | 7.13 films |
| Romance | — | — | — | 7.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Happy Gilmore
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Reporter.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.0 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
2024Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two
The current state of the argument, as The Question / Satellite (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.
20 of 20 films
as Clank (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Newsreel Announcer (voice)
Directed by Pete Docter
as Grandpa Ken / Max Tennyson / Azmuth Humungousaur / Omni-Kix Humungousaur / Omni-Naut Humungousaur / Shock Rock / Omni-Naut Shock Rock (voice)
Directed by Henrique Jardim
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as UDF Commercial (voice)
Directed by Doug Liman
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
Clank (voice)
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie (2021)
Performance score9.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Clank (voice) gives David Kaye a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Newsreel Announcer (voice)
Up (2009)
Performance score7.9
Up asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Newsreel Announcer (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Grandpa Ken / Max Tennyson / Azmuth Humungousaur / Omni-Kix Humungousaur / Omni-Naut Humungousaur / Shock Rock / Omni-Naut Shock Rock (voice)
Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The Movie (2020)
Performance score7.8
Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grandpa Ken / Max Tennyson / Azmuth Humungousaur / Omni-Kix Humungousaur / Omni-Naut Humungousaur / Shock Rock / Omni-Naut Shock Rock (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Additional Voices (voice)
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024)
Performance score7.5
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (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 Clank (voice)
Start here. Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie is the clearest statement of what David Kaye does — accessible, 23 minutes, and rated 9.0 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.
Up (2009)
Keeps the adventure register of Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Up — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The Movie (2020)
Keeps the action register of Edge of Tomorrow but asks for a colder reading of it.
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024)
Keeps the science fiction register of Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Henrique Jardim
Director
3 films together
Notably Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The Movie
Jeff Wamester
Director
3 films together
Notably Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Gilmore
William R. Kowalchuk Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie
John A. Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ant Bully
Pete Docter
Director
1 film together
Notably Up
Leo Riley
Director
1 film together
Notably Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably Edge of Tomorrow
Aaron Horvath
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Chloé Zhao
Director
1 film together
Notably Eternals
Terry Ingram
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wedding Veil
Ken Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jeff Wamester
Director
3 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part OneHenrique Jardim
Director
3 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Ben 10 vs. the Universe: The MoviePete Docter
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UpDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Edge of TomorrowTerry Ingram
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 Wedding VeilAaron Horvath
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! To the MoviesChloé Zhao
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EternalsDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy GilmoreKen Cunningham
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission DemolitionWilliam R. Kowalchuk Jr.
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The MovieLeo Riley
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes UnitedJohn A. Davis
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 Ant BullySix 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
Up
as Newsreel Announcer (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
The Wedding Veil
as Jeff
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Happy Gilmore
as Reporter
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (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. David 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
28 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
16 catalogue titles in animation, 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
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie
as Cupid (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Ant Bully
as Sleeping Ant #2 / Guard Ant #3 / Wrangler Ant (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie
as Clank (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Ant Bully
as Sleeping Ant #2 / Guard Ant #3 / Wrangler Ant (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Up
as Newsreel Announcer (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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