Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3236
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Yaya DaCosta 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.
Yaya DaCosta appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yaya. The Butler is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 music, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Shane Black, Lee Daniels, Andrew Niccol and others, Yaya DaCosta 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 Butler (2013) as Carol Hammie · The Nice Guys (2016) as Tally · In Time (2011) as Greta
Career snapshot
Ranked #3236 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2006–2019
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Butler
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Butler
Most frequent director
Shane Black
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Shane Black
Most common genre
Drama
5 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
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. The Messenger, Take the Lead — 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
6.8
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. The Messenger, Take the Lead.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.03 films |
| Action | — | 6.93 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.82 films |
| Crime | — | 7.11 film |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
2006Take the Lead
Where our catalogue meets this career, as LaRhette. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2013The Butler
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2019Bolden
The current state of the argument, as Nora Bolden.
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.
8 of 8 films
as LaRhette
Directed by Liz Friedlander
as Tally
Directed by Shane Black
as Carol Hammie
Directed by Lee Daniels
as Greta
Directed by Andrew Niccol
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
LaRhette
Take the Lead (2006)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. LaRhette gives Yaya DaCosta a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tally
The Nice Guys (2016)
Performance score7.2
The Nice Guys asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tally is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Carol Hammie
The Butler (2013)
Performance score7.2
The Butler asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carol Hammie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Greta
In Time (2011)
Performance score6.9
In Time asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Greta 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 LaRhette
Start here. Take the Lead is the clearest statement of what Yaya DaCosta does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yaya 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 Kids Are All Right (2010)
Keeps the drama register of Take the Lead but asks for a colder reading of it.
In Time (2011)
A deliberate change of key after The Kids Are All Right — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Butler (2013)
A deliberate change of key after In Time — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Nice Guys (2016)
A deliberate change of key after The Butler — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Liz Friedlander
Director
1 film together
Notably Take the Lead
Joseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together
Notably TRON: Legacy
Lisa Cholodenko
Director
1 film together
Notably The Kids Are All Right
Andrew Niccol
Director
1 film together
Notably In Time
Lee Daniels
Director
1 film together
Notably The Butler
Shane Black
Director
1 film together
Notably The Nice Guys
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lee Daniels
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ButlerShane Black
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 Nice GuysAndrew Niccol
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In TimeLiz Friedlander
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Take the LeadLisa Cholodenko
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Kids Are All RightJoseph Kosinski
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TRON: LegacySix 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 Butler
as Carol Hammie
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Take the Lead
as LaRhette
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 Butler
as Carol Hammie
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Butler
as Carol Hammie
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Take the Lead
as LaRhette
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. Yaya DaCosta 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
5 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 Butler
as Carol Hammie
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
In Time
as Greta
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bolden
as Nora Bolden
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Nice Guys
as Tally
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Nice Guys
as Tally
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
TRON: Legacy
as Siren #3
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Take the Lead
as LaRhette
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
TRON: Legacy
as Siren #3
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Edward Norton
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Have your say
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Reference
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