Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20223
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Lipper represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 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 Lipper appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. High Strung is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, thriller, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Steven Brand, David Lipper, Michael Damian and others, David Lipper 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.
High Strung (2016) as Stage Manager · Off the Grid (2025) as Eddie · Dante's Peak (1997) as Hot Springs Man
Career snapshot
Ranked #20223 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1997–2025
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
High Strung
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
High Strung
Most frequent director
Steven Brand
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Steven Brand
Most common genre
Action
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.4
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
2010s
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. High Strung — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Dante's Peak.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 6.41 film | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Action | 6.41 film | 6.31 film | — | 6.04 films |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | — | — | 6.03 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.31 film | — | 5.81 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.11 film |
| Romance | — | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.72 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997Dante's Peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hot Springs Man.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2016High Strung
6.9 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
2025Off the Grid
The current state of the argument, as Eddie.
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 Stage Manager
Directed by Michael Damian
as Eddie
Directed by Unknown
as Marco Leon
Directed by Steven Brand
as Max
Directed by David Lipper
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
Stage Manager
High Strung (2016)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Stage Manager gives David Lipper a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Eddie
Off the Grid (2025)
Performance score6.5
Off the Grid asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Eddie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marco Leon
Joe Baby (2024)
Performance score6.5
Joe Baby asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marco Leon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Conrad
Hunt Club (2023)
Performance score6.5
Hunt Club asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Conrad 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 Stage Manager
Start here. High Strung is the clearest statement of what David Lipper does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 6.9 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.
Wolf Mountain (2022)
A deliberate change of key after High Strung — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Hunt Club (2023)
Keeps the action register of Wolf Mountain but asks for a colder reading of it.
Joe Baby (2024)
Keeps the action register of Hunt Club but asks for a colder reading of it.
Off the Grid (2025)
Keeps the action register of Joe Baby but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably Dante's Peak
Adam Shankman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pacifier
Michael Damian
Director
1 film together
Notably High Strung
David Lipper
Director
1 film together
Notably Wolf Mountain
Steven Brand
Director
1 film together
Notably Joe Baby
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Damian
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
High StrungRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dante's PeakAdam Shankman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PacifierSteven Brand
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joe BabyDavid Lipper
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wolf MountainSix 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
High Strung
as Stage Manager
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
High Strung
as Stage Manager
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
High Strung
as Stage Manager
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Pacifier
as Cute Cop
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
High Strung
as Stage Manager
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 Lipper 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
28 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in action, 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
High Strung
as Stage Manager
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Off the Grid
as Eddie
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
High Strung
as Stage Manager
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Joe Baby
as Marco Leon
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dante's Peak
as Hot Springs Man
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dante's Peak
as Hot Springs Man
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
High Strung
as Stage Manager
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Reboot Camp
as Seymour / Gordon St. Pierre
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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Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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