Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1932
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
David Wenham represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 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 Wenham appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the clearest case: a film rated 8.8 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 action, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jonathan Teplitzky, Baz Luhrmann, Rick Morales and others, David Wenham 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 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) as Faramir · The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) as Faramir · Lion (2016) as John Brierley
Career snapshot
Ranked #1932 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
1998–2027
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.8
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.5
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Most frequent director
Baz Luhrmann
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Baz Luhrmann
Most common genre
Adventure
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.9
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
1990s
7.3 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Dark City — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.3
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. Dark City.
Most productive era
2000s
10 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 | — | 6.75 films | 7.02 films | 6.92 films |
| Action | — | 7.55 films | 6.42 films | 3.92 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.91 film | 4.53 films |
| Crime | — | 6.32 films | — | 6.61 film |
| Romance | — | 6.63 films | — | 6.31 film |
| Horror | — | 6.32 films | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Dark City
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Schreber's Assistant.
Career peak
2002The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2003The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2027Zac Power
The current state of the argument, as Agent Papercut (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.
24 of 24 films
as Faramir
Directed by Peter Jackson
as Faramir
Directed by Peter Jackson
as Kano (voice)
Directed by Rick Morales
as Dilios/Narrator
Directed by Zack Snyder
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
Faramir
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Faramir gives David Wenham a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Faramir
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Performance score8.4
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Faramir is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
John Brierley
Lion (2016)
Performance score8.2
Lion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. John Brierley is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kano (voice)
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022)
Performance score8.0
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kano (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 Faramir
Start here. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the clearest statement of what David Wenham does — accessible, 201 minutes, and rated 8.8 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 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Same director as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
300 (2007)
Keeps the action register of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lion (2016)
A deliberate change of key after 300 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Lion — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Baz Luhrmann
Director
3 films together
Notably Elvis
Peter Jackson
Director
2 films together
Notably The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Zack Snyder
Director
2 films together
Notably 300
Will Gluck
Director
2 films together
Notably Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
Alex Proyas
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark City
Stephen Sommers
Director
1 film together
Notably Van Helsing
Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together
Notably The Children of Huang Shi
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Public Enemies
Garth Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Lion
Espen Sandberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Gregor Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Dirt Music
Rick Morales
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
Jonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together
Notably Spit
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Baz Luhrmann
Director
3 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ElvisPeter Jackson
Director
2 films together · 8.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingZack Snyder
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
300Will Gluck
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Peter Rabbit 2: The RunawayGarth Davis
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LionRick Morales
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow BlindAlex Proyas
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark CityMichael Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Public EnemiesEspen Sandberg
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No TalesRoger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Children of Huang ShiJonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpitStephen Sommers
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Van HelsingGregor Jordan
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dirt MusicSix 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 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
as Faramir
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Elvis
as Hank Snow
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 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
as Faramir
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
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 Wenham 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
29 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in adventure, 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 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Elvis
as Hank Snow
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Dark City
as Schreber's Assistant
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Van Helsing
as Carl
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Moulin Rouge!
as Audrey
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
as Faramir
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
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Ted Levine
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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