Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1864
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Damon Herriman 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.
Damon Herriman appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Damon. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Simon McQuoid, Michael Gracey, Daina Reid and others, Damon Herriman 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.
Mortal Kombat II (2026) as Quan Chi · Better Man (2024) as Nigel Martin-Smith · Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) as Charlie
Career snapshot
Ranked #1864 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
2005–2026
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Mortal Kombat II
Most frequent director
Simon McQuoid
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Simon McQuoid
Most common genre
Drama
9 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
6.4
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Judy & Punch, The Nightingale — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Winged Creatures, Redbelt, House of Wax.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.22 films | 6.75 films | 7.22 films |
| Action | — | 6.32 films | 7.52 films |
| Thriller | 6.01 film | 6.84 films | 5.82 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.82 films | 4.53 films |
| Crime | 5.91 film | 6.23 films | 6.71 film |
| Romance | — | — | 6.91 film |
| Horror | 6.01 film | — | 6.23 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005House of Wax
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lester Sinclair.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2026Mortal Kombat II
7.9 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
2026The Fox
The current state of the argument, as Derek.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Quan Chi
Directed by Simon McQuoid
as Nigel Martin-Smith
Directed by Michael Gracey
as Charlie
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Ruse
Directed by Jennifer Kent
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
Quan Chi
Mortal Kombat II (2026)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Quan Chi gives Damon Herriman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nigel Martin-Smith
Better Man (2024)
Performance score7.4
Better Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nigel Martin-Smith is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Charlie
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Performance score7.4
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Charlie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jamie
Together (2025)
Performance score7.3
Together asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jamie 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 Quan Chi
Start here. Mortal Kombat II is the clearest statement of what Damon Herriman does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Damon 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 Nightingale (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Mortal Kombat II — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Keeps the drama register of The Nightingale but asks for a colder reading of it.
Better Man (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Together (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Better Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Simon McQuoid
Director
2 films together
Notably Mortal Kombat II
Jaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together
Notably House of Wax
David Mamet
Director
1 film together
Notably Redbelt
Rowan Woods
Director
1 film together
Notably Winged Creatures
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably J. Edgar
Gore Verbinski
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lone Ranger
Jennifer Kent
Director
1 film together
Notably The Nightingale
Mirrah Foulkes
Director
1 film together
Notably Judy & Punch
Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway
Jeffrey Walker
Director
1 film together
Notably The Portable Door
Daina Reid
Director
1 film together
Notably Run Rabbit Run
Michael Gracey
Director
1 film together
Notably Better Man
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Simon McQuoid
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat IIMichael Gracey
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Better ManQuentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a Time... in HollywoodJennifer Kent
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 NightingaleWill Gluck
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter Rabbit 2: The RunawayJeffrey Walker
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Portable DoorDavid Mamet
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RedbeltClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
J. EdgarMirrah Foulkes
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Judy & PunchGore Verbinski
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lone RangerJaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
House of WaxRowan Woods
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Winged CreaturesDaina Reid
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Run Rabbit RunSix 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Better Man
as Nigel Martin-Smith
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Winged Creatures
as TV Minister
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
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. Damon Herriman 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
9 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
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Better Man
as Nigel Martin-Smith
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Monolith
as Jarad (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mortal Kombat II
as Quan Chi
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Judy & Punch
as Punch
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Charlie
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — Quentin Tarantino
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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