Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#877
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Dichen Lachman 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.
Dichen Lachman appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dichen. Raya and the Last Dragon is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Wes Ball, Rob Savage, Patrick Lussier and others, Dichen Lachman 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.
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice) · Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) as Korina · Jurassic World Dominion (2022) as Soyona Santos
Career snapshot
Ranked #877 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2006–2027
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Average Nutevio score
5.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Raya and the Last Dragon
Most frequent director
Wes Ball
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Wes Ball
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Aquamarine — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.5
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. Aquamarine.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 4.31 film |
| Action | — | 5.35 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.13 films |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 5.32 films |
| Crime | — | 5.61 film |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — |
| Horror | — | 3.12 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2006Aquamarine
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Beth-Ann.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.8 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
The current state of the argument, as Impa.
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.
10 of 10 films
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
Directed by Don Hall
as Korina
Directed by Wes Ball
as Samantha 'Doc' Brown
Directed by Patrick Lussier
as Soyona Santos
Directed by Colin Trevorrow
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
General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice) gives Dichen Lachman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Korina
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Performance score7.0
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Korina is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Cora
Vampires of the Velvet Lounge (2026)
Performance score6.7
Vampires of the Velvet Lounge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cora is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Samantha 'Doc' Brown
Aftermath (2024)
Performance score6.7
Aftermath asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Samantha 'Doc' Brown 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 General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
Start here. Raya and the Last Dragon is the clearest statement of what Dichen Lachman does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dichen 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.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Keeps the adventure register of Raya and the Last Dragon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Keeps the science fiction register of Jurassic World Dominion but asks for a colder reading of it.
Aftermath (2024)
Keeps the action register of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Vampires of the Velvet Lounge (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Aftermath — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Wes Ball
Director
2 films together
Notably Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum
Director
1 film together
Notably Aquamarine
William Teitler
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Therapy
Don Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Raya and the Last Dragon
Colin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World Dominion
Steven Brand
Director
1 film together
Notably Joe Baby
Patrick Lussier
Director
1 film together
Notably Aftermath
Rob Savage
Director
1 film together
Notably Other Mommy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Wes Ball
Director
2 films together · 3.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Kingdom of the Planet of the ApesDon Hall
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Raya and the Last DragonColin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World DominionElizabeth Allen Rosenbaum
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AquamarinePatrick Lussier
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AftermathSteven Brand
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joe BabyWilliam Teitler
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad TherapyRob Savage
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Other MommySix 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Aquamarine
as Beth-Ann
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
as Korina
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
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. Dichen Lachman 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in action, 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
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Aquamarine
as Beth-Ann
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Joe Baby
as Joe Baby
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Raya and the Last Dragon
as General Atitaya / Spine Warrior (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
as Korina
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Aquamarine
as Beth-Ann
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
as Korina
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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