Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#48562
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
David Stifel 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 Stifel appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, mystery, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Weingarten, Joel Schumacher, Stephen Hillenburg and others, David Stifel 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.
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) as Cookie the Pirate · The Number 23 (2007) as Hotel Clerk · A Life Less Ordinary (1997) as Felix
Career snapshot
Ranked #48562 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1997–2019
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
Most frequent director
Daniel Weingarten
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Weingarten
Most common genre
Drama
3 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
6.3
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
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Number 23, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, The Million Dollar Hotel — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.5
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. A Life Less Ordinary.
Most productive era
2000s
3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.22 films | 4.31 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 7.11 film | — |
| Crime | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Felix.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2004The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
7.1 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
2019Up There
The current state of the argument, as Dad.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Cookie the Pirate
Directed by Stephen Hillenburg
as Hotel Clerk
Directed by Joel Schumacher
as Screamer for Jesus
Directed by Wim Wenders
as Felix
Directed by Danny Boyle
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
Cookie the Pirate
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cookie the Pirate gives David Stifel a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dad
Up There (2019)
Performance score6.5
Up There asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dad is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hotel Clerk
The Number 23 (2007)
Performance score6.5
The Number 23 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hotel Clerk is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Screamer for Jesus
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Performance score6.5
The Million Dollar Hotel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Screamer for Jesus 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 Cookie the Pirate
Start here. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is the clearest statement of what David Stifel does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 7.1 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.
A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
A deliberate change of key after A Life Less Ordinary — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Number 23 (2007)
Keeps the drama register of The Million Dollar Hotel but asks for a colder reading of it.
Up There (2019)
Keeps the drama register of The Number 23 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Danny Boyle
Director
1 film together
Notably A Life Less Ordinary
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably The Million Dollar Hotel
Stephen Hillenburg
Director
1 film together
Notably The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
Joel Schumacher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Number 23
Daniel Weingarten
Director
1 film together
Notably Up There
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stephen Hillenburg
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 SpongeBob SquarePants MovieJoel Schumacher
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 Number 23Danny Boyle
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Life Less OrdinaryWim Wenders
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Million Dollar HotelDaniel Weingarten
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Up ThereSix 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
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
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 SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
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 Stifel 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
22 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
3 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
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Number 23
as Hotel Clerk
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Number 23
as Hotel Clerk
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
as Cookie the Pirate
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Life Less Ordinary
as Felix
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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