Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14261
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jonathan Bennett 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.
Jonathan Bennett appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jonathan. Take Me to Tarzana 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 romance, tv movie, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Martin Wood, Maclain Nelson, Terry Ingram and others, Jonathan Bennett 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.
Take Me to Tarzana (2021) as Jameson Doheny · A Make or Break Holiday (2025) as Restaurant Manager · Mean Girls (2004) as Aaron Samuels
Career snapshot
Ranked #14261 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2004–2025
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Take Me to Tarzana
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Take Me to Tarzana
Most frequent director
Martin Wood
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Martin Wood
Most common genre
TV Movie
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Mean Girls — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Mean Girls.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.41 film | — | 6.21 film |
| Action | — | 4.41 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.32 films | 4.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.82 films | 4.41 film | 6.34 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.34 films |
| Horror | — | 5.03 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Mean Girls
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Aaron Samuels.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2025A Keller Christmas Vacation
The current state of the argument, as Dylan Keller.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Restaurant Manager
Directed by Martin Wood
as Aaron Samuels
Directed by Mark Waters
as Dylan Keller
Directed by Maclain Nelson
as Mike Harrelson
Directed by Gail Harvey
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
Jameson Doheny
Take Me to Tarzana (2021)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jameson Doheny gives Jonathan Bennett a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Restaurant Manager
A Make or Break Holiday (2025)
Performance score7.4
A Make or Break Holiday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Restaurant Manager is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Aaron Samuels
Mean Girls (2004)
Performance score7.2
Mean Girls asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aaron Samuels is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dylan Keller
A Keller Christmas Vacation (2025)
Performance score6.7
A Keller Christmas Vacation asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dylan Keller 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 Jameson Doheny
Start here. Take Me to Tarzana is the clearest statement of what Jonathan Bennett does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jonathan 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.
Mean Girls (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of Take Me to Tarzana but asks for a colder reading of it.
Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Mean Girls but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Make or Break Holiday (2025)
Keeps the romance register of Christmas on Cherry Lane but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Keller Christmas Vacation (2025)
Keeps the tv movie register of A Make or Break Holiday but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Mean Girls
Adam Shankman
Director
1 film together
Notably Cheaper by the Dozen 2
Michael Grossman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Christmas House
Gail Harvey
Director
1 film together
Notably Christmas on Cherry Lane
Terry Ingram
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Howlidays
Maclain Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably A Keller Christmas Vacation
Martin Wood
Director
1 film together
Notably A Make or Break Holiday
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Wood
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Make or Break HolidayMark Waters
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mean GirlsGail Harvey
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Christmas on Cherry LaneAdam Shankman
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cheaper by the Dozen 2Maclain Nelson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Keller Christmas VacationMichael Grossman
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 Christmas HouseTerry Ingram
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy HowlidaysSix 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
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Christmas on Cherry Lane
as Mike Harrelson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Make or Break Holiday
as Restaurant Manager
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
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. Jonathan Bennett 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
21 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.
TV Movie Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in tv movie, 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
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Dawn
as William
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Christmas on Cherry Lane
as Mike Harrelson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Take Me to Tarzana
as Jameson Doheny
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Last Sharknado: It's About Time
as Billy the Kid
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Christmas on Cherry Lane
as Mike Harrelson
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mean Girls
as Aaron Samuels
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
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Reference
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