Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#22617
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ben Ashenden is the performer our scores keep defending against the popular vote — a career of films that get better the further you stand from their release week.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ben Ashenden appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ben. Jurassic World Dominion is the clearest case: a film rated 6.8 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 romance, comedy, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tom Kingsley, Shekhar Kapur, Colin Trevorrow and others, Ben Ashenden 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.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022) as Tyler · Deep Cover (2025) as Dawes · Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) as Pierce
Career snapshot
Ranked #22617 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2016–2026
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.8
Jurassic World Dominion
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.7
Deep Cover
Most frequent director
Tom Kingsley
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tom Kingsley
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.1
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
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Horrible Histories: The Movie — Rotten Romans, Bridget Jones's Baby — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Horrible Histories: The Movie — Rotten Romans, Bridget Jones's Baby.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | 5.71 film |
| Action | — | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.22 films | 4.54 films |
| Crime | — | 6.71 film |
| Romance | 6.51 film | 3.12 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Pierce.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
6.8 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
2026Wicker
The current state of the argument, as Baker.
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 Tyler
Directed by Colin Trevorrow
as Dawes
Directed by Tom Kingsley
as Tip the MoCap Guy
Directed by Judd Apatow
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
Tyler
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Performance score6.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tyler gives Ben Ashenden a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dawes
Deep Cover (2025)
Performance score6.6
Deep Cover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dawes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Baker
Wicker (2026)
Performance score6.5
Wicker asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Baker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sam
What's Love Got to Do with It? (2023)
Performance score6.5
What's Love Got to Do with It? asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sam 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 Tyler
Start here. Jurassic World Dominion is the clearest statement of what Ben Ashenden does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ben 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 Bubble (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Jurassic World Dominion — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
What's Love Got to Do with It? (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of The Bubble but asks for a colder reading of it.
Deep Cover (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of What's Love Got to Do with It? but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wicker (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Deep Cover but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Dominic Brigstocke
Director
1 film together
Notably Horrible Histories: The Movie — Rotten Romans
Julian Jarrold
Director
1 film together
Notably Sulphur & White
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bubble
Colin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World Dominion
Shekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together
Notably What's Love Got to Do with It?
Tom Kingsley
Director
1 film together
Notably Deep Cover
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Colin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World DominionTom Kingsley
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deep CoverShekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What's Love Got to Do with It?Dominic Brigstocke
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Horrible Histories: The Movie — Rotten RomansJulian Jarrold
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sulphur & WhiteJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BubbleSix 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
Jurassic World Dominion
as Tyler
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Bridget Jones's Baby
as Pierce
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Jurassic World Dominion
as Tyler
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Horrible Histories: The Movie — Rotten Romans
as Messenger
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Jurassic World Dominion
as Tyler
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. Ben Ashenden 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Jurassic World Dominion
as Tyler
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Deep Cover
as Dawes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bridget Jones's Baby
as Pierce
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Jurassic World Dominion
as Tyler
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Deep Cover
as Dawes
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Deep Cover
as Dawes
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bridget Jones's Baby
as Pierce
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sulphur & White
as Sean
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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Bonnie Hunt
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Elliot Page
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David Krumholtz
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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