Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#29507
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Menkin 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.
David Menkin appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Ron's Gone Wrong 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, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ilya Naishuller, Kenneth Branagh, Jean-Philippe Vine and others, David Menkin 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.
Ron's Gone Wrong (2021) as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice) · The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) as Jones · Heads of State (2025) as Beast Driver
Career snapshot
Ranked #29507 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2015–2026
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Ron's Gone Wrong
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Ron's Gone Wrong
Most frequent director
Ilya Naishuller
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ilya Naishuller
Most common genre
Comedy
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Florence Foster Jenkins, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Florence Foster Jenkins, The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | 6.71 film | 6.31 film |
| Action | 7.11 film | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.72 films |
| Comedy | 6.92 films | 7.32 films |
| Crime | — | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jones.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Ron's Gone Wrong
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
2026Fatherland
The current state of the argument, as Arthur Quint.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice)
Directed by Jean-Philippe Vine
as Jones
Directed by Guy Ritchie
as Beast Driver
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
as Puppet Show MC
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
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
Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice)
Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice) gives David Menkin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jones
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Performance score7.0
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jones is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Beast Driver
Heads of State (2025)
Performance score6.7
Heads of State asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Beast Driver is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Puppet Show MC
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Performance score6.6
A Haunting in Venice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Puppet Show MC 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 Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice)
Start here. Ron's Gone Wrong is the clearest statement of what David Menkin does — accessible, 107 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.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Keeps the comedy register of Ron's Gone Wrong but asks for a colder reading of it.
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Florence Foster Jenkins — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heads of State (2025)
Keeps the thriller register of A Haunting in Venice but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Guy Ritchie
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together
Notably Florence Foster Jenkins
Jean-Philippe Vine
Director
1 film together
Notably Ron's Gone Wrong
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably A Haunting in Venice
Ilya Naishuller
Director
1 film together
Notably Heads of State
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jean-Philippe Vine
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ron's Gone WrongGuy Ritchie
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 Man from U.N.C.L.E.Ilya Naishuller
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heads of StateStephen Frears
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Florence Foster JenkinsKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Haunting in VeniceSix 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
Ron's Gone Wrong
as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (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
Fatherland
as Arthur Quint
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ron's Gone Wrong
as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Heads of State
as Beast Driver
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ron's Gone Wrong
as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (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 Menkin 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
4 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
Ron's Gone Wrong
as Shayne The Biker / Mr. Cleaver (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
A Haunting in Venice
as Puppet Show MC
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Fatherland
as Arthur Quint
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Haunting in Venice
as Puppet Show MC
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
as Jones
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
as Jones
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fatherland
as Arthur Quint
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Florence Foster Jenkins
as Carlton Smith
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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