Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5976
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
David Wilmot represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 30 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 Wilmot appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Hamnet is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 horror, romance, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Damian McCarthy, Chloé Zhao, Nick Rowland and others, David Wilmot 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.
Hamnet (2025) as John · Breathe (2017) as Paddy · Calvary (2014) as Father Leary
Career snapshot
Ranked #5976 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1996–2026
Career length
30 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Hamnet
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Hamnet
Most frequent director
Damian McCarthy
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Damian McCarthy
Most common genre
Drama
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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
6.6
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
2020s
6.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Hokum, Hamnet, The Wonder — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.9
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
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. The Devil's Own, Michael Collins.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 6.52 films | 6.32 films | 6.85 films | 6.93 films |
| Action | — | 6.41 film | 5.71 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.52 films | — | 6.01 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.02 films | 5.71 film | — |
| Crime | 6.21 film | 6.21 film | — | 6.31 film |
| Romance | — | 5.81 film | 7.03 films | 7.71 film |
| Horror | — | — | — | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Michael Collins
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Squad Youth #2.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025Hamnet
7.7 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
2026Hokum
The current state of the argument, as Jerry.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Peter
Directed by Lisa Barros D'Sa
as Paddy
Directed by Andy Serkis
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
John
Hamnet (2025)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. John gives David Wilmot a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jerry
Hokum (2026)
Performance score7.4
Hokum asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jerry is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Peter
Ordinary Love (2019)
Performance score7.2
Ordinary Love asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Paddy
Breathe (2017)
Performance score7.2
Breathe asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paddy 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 John
Start here. Hamnet is the clearest statement of what David Wilmot does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.7 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.
Calvary (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Hamnet but asks for a colder reading of it.
Breathe (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Calvary but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ordinary Love (2019)
Keeps the romance register of Breathe but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hokum (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Ordinary Love — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Neil Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Michael Collins
Alan J. Pakula
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devil's Own
John Crowley
Director
1 film together
Notably Intermission
Peter Howitt
Director
1 film together
Notably Laws of Attraction
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably King Arthur
Joe Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Anna Karenina
James Marsh
Director
1 film together
Notably Shadow Dancer
Andy Serkis
Director
1 film together
Notably Breathe
David Yates
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Lisa Barros D'Sa
Director
1 film together
Notably Ordinary Love
Nick Rowland
Director
1 film together
Notably Calm with Horses
Chloé Zhao
Director
1 film together
Notably Hamnet
Damian McCarthy
Director
1 film together
Notably Hokum
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Chloé Zhao
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HamnetAndy Serkis
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BreatheDamian McCarthy
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HokumLisa Barros D'Sa
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ordinary LoveDavid Yates
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of GrindelwaldJoe Wright
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Anna KareninaNeil Jordan
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Michael CollinsAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
King ArthurNick Rowland
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Calm with HorsesJohn Crowley
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IntermissionAlan J. Pakula
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Devil's OwnJames Marsh
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shadow DancerPeter Howitt
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Laws of AttractionSix 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
Hamnet
as John
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hamnet
as John
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hamnet
as John
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
as Portkey Tout
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hamnet
as John
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 Wilmot 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
30 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
12 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
Hamnet
as John
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Hokum
as Jerry
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Hamnet
as John
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Wonder
as Sean Ryan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hamnet
as John
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
King Arthur
as Woad Killed by Lancelot
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Intermission
as Oscar
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
King Arthur
as Woad Killed by Lancelot
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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