Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4301
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Danny Woodburn 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.
Danny Woodburn appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Danny. Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is the clearest case: a film rated 6.4 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 drama, science fiction, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jonathan Liebesman, Tarsem Singh, Danny DeVito and others, Danny Woodburn 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.
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet (2019) · Jingle All the Way (1996) as Tony the Elf · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) as Splinter
Career snapshot
Ranked #4301 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1995–2019
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.4
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.4
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
Most frequent director
Brian Levant
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Brian Levant
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
1990s
6.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Jingle All the Way, Lord of Illusions — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.0
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. Jingle All the Way, Lord of Illusions.
Most productive era
2010s
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.91 film | 5.91 film | 6.12 films |
| Action | — | — | 5.82 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | 4.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 5.32 films | 5.92 films |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Romance | — | 4.81 film | — |
| Horror | 5.91 film | — | 4.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Forensic Photographer.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2019Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
6.4 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. The current state of the argument.
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.
9 of 9 films
Directed by Unknown
as Arni
Directed by Unknown
as Splinter
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
as Grimm
Directed by Tarsem Singh
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
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet (2019)
Performance score6.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Danny Woodburn a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Arni
Lavalantula (2015)
Performance score6.5
Lavalantula asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arni is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Splinter
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Performance score6.5
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Splinter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sluggy Korn-Nuts
Bad Ass (2012)
Performance score6.5
Bad Ass asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sluggy Korn-Nuts 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
Start here. Anthem of a Teenage Prophet is the clearest statement of what Danny Woodburn does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 6.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Danny 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.
Bad Ass (2012)
Same director as Anthem of a Teenage Prophet, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Mirror Mirror (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Bad Ass — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Keeps the comedy register of Mirror Mirror but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lavalantula (2015)
Keeps the science fiction register of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brian Levant
Director
2 films together
Notably Jingle All the Way
Clive Barker
Director
1 film together
Notably Lord of Illusions
Danny DeVito
Director
1 film together
Notably Death to Smoochy
Tarsem Singh
Director
1 film together
Notably Mirror Mirror
Jonathan Liebesman
Director
1 film together
Notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brian Levant
Director
2 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jingle All the WayJonathan Liebesman
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesTarsem Singh
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mirror MirrorDanny DeVito
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death to SmoochyClive Barker
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lord of IllusionsSix 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
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
as Little Rocko
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Jingle All the Way
as Tony the Elf
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
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. Danny Woodburn 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
24 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
5 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
Anthem of a Teenage Prophet
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Lord of Illusions
as Forensic Photographer
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
as Little Rocko
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mirror Mirror
as Grimm
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
as Splinter
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
as Splinter
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Death to Smoochy
as Angelo Pike
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Jingle All the Way
as Tony the Elf
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
Community
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Reference
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