Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13320
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Threlfall works on transformation 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 Threlfall appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Hot Fuzz 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 transformation, drama, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Edgar Wright, Shekhar Kapur, Frank Pierson and others, David Threlfall 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.
Hot Fuzz (2007) as Martin Blower · Conspiracy (2001) as Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger · Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) as Dr. John Dee
Career snapshot
Ranked #13320 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1992–2007
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Hot Fuzz
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Hot Fuzz
Most frequent director
Edgar Wright
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Edgar Wright
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.6
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
7.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Hot Fuzz, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Conspiracy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.2
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.2
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. Patriot Games.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.71 film | 7.02 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | 7.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.71 film |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 7.71 film |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Patriot Games
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Inspector Highland.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2007Hot Fuzz
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
The current state of the argument, as Dr. John Dee.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Martin Blower
Directed by Edgar Wright
as Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger
Directed by Frank Pierson
as Dr. John Dee
Directed by Shekhar Kapur
as Inspector Highland
Directed by Phillip Noyce
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
Martin Blower
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Martin Blower gives David Threlfall a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger
Conspiracy (2001)
Performance score7.2
Conspiracy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dr. John Dee
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Performance score6.6
Elizabeth: The Golden Age asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. John Dee is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Inspector Highland
Patriot Games (1992)
Performance score6.6
Patriot Games asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Inspector Highland 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 Martin Blower
Start here. Hot Fuzz is the clearest statement of what David Threlfall does — accessible, 121 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.
Patriot Games (1992)
Keeps the action register of Hot Fuzz but asks for a colder reading of it.
Conspiracy (2001)
Keeps the drama register of Patriot Games but asks for a colder reading of it.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Keeps the drama register of Conspiracy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Edgar Wright
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot FuzzFrank Pierson
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ConspiracyShekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Elizabeth: The Golden AgePhillip Noyce
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Patriot GamesSix 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
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
as Dr. John Dee
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
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 Threlfall 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.
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
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
as Dr. John Dee
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Patriot Games
as Inspector Highland
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Conspiracy
as Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hot Fuzz
as Martin Blower
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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