Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#27711
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Moreland represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 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 Moreland appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Donnie Darko 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 quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James DeMonaco, Todd Phillips, Mark Romanek and others, David Moreland 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.
Donnie Darko (2001) as Principal Cole · The Home (2025) as Older White Male · Legally Blonde (2001) as Admissions Guy
Career snapshot
Ranked #27711 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1998–2025
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Donnie Darko
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Donnie Darko
Most frequent director
James DeMonaco
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James DeMonaco
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.7
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
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Old School, One Hour Photo, Donnie Darko — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.0
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. City of Angels.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 7.32 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.71 film | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.72 films | 6.51 film |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998City of Angels
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Husband Frank.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Donnie Darko
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
2025The Home
The current state of the argument, as Older White Male.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Principal Cole
Directed by Richard Kelly
as Older White Male
Directed by James DeMonaco
as Admissions Guy
Directed by Robert Luketic
as Husband Frank
Directed by Brad Silberling
as Convention Speaker
Directed by Todd Phillips
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
Principal Cole
Donnie Darko (2001)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Principal Cole gives David Moreland a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Older White Male
The Home (2025)
Performance score6.7
The Home asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Older White Male is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Admissions Guy
Legally Blonde (2001)
Performance score6.7
Legally Blonde asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Admissions Guy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Husband Frank
City of Angels (1998)
Performance score6.7
City of Angels asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Husband Frank 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 Principal Cole
Start here. Donnie Darko is the clearest statement of what David Moreland does — accessible, 114 minutes, and rated 7.9 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.
City of Angels (1998)
Keeps the fantasy register of Donnie Darko but asks for a colder reading of it.
Legally Blonde (2001)
A deliberate change of key after City of Angels — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Old School (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of Legally Blonde but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Home (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Old School — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brad Silberling
Director
1 film together
Notably City of Angels
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably Legally Blonde
Richard Kelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Donnie Darko
Mark Romanek
Director
1 film together
Notably One Hour Photo
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably Old School
James DeMonaco
Director
1 film together
Notably The Home
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Richard Kelly
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Donnie DarkoJames DeMonaco
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HomeRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legally BlondeBrad Silberling
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City of AngelsMark Romanek
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Hour PhotoTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Old SchoolSix 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
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
City of Angels
as Husband Frank
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Old School
as Convention Speaker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
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 Moreland 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
27 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
3 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
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
City of Angels
as Husband Frank
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Genie
as Neighbor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
City of Angels
as Husband Frank
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Donnie Darko
as Principal Cole
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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