Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4505
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Don Lake represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Don is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Don Lake appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Don. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 comedy, mystery, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Josh Greenbaum, Byron Howard, Colin Hanks and others, Don Lake 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.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) as Mossberg · Zootopia (2016) as Stu Hopps (voice) · John Candy: I Like Me (2025) as Self - Actor, Wagons East
Career snapshot
Ranked #4505 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1984–2026
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Most frequent director
Christopher Guest
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Christopher Guest
Most common genre
Comedy
17 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.8
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
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Dink, Zootopia 2, John Candy: I Like Me — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.1
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Short Circuit 2, Police Academy.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | — | — | 5.41 film | — |
| Action | — | 7.62 films | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 8.41 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.04 films | 6.53 films | 6.15 films | 6.83 films |
| Crime | 6.81 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984Police Academy
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mr. Wig.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1991Terminator 2: Judgment Day
8.4 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.
Most recent film
2026The Dink
The current state of the argument, as Gary.
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 Mossberg
Directed by James Cameron
as Stu Hopps (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
as Self - Actor, Wagons East
Directed by Colin Hanks
as Stu Hopps (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
as Graham Chissolm
Directed by Christopher Guest
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
Mossberg
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mossberg gives Don Lake a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Stu Hopps (voice)
Zootopia (2016)
Performance score7.8
Zootopia asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stu Hopps (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self - Actor, Wagons East
John Candy: I Like Me (2025)
Performance score7.7
John Candy: I Like Me asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Actor, Wagons East is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Stu Hopps (voice)
Zootopia 2 (2025)
Performance score7.5
Zootopia 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stu Hopps (voice) 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 Mossberg
Start here. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the clearest statement of what Don Lake does — accessible, 137 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Don 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.
Best in Show (2000)
A deliberate change of key after Terminator 2: Judgment Day — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Zootopia (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of Best in Show but asks for a colder reading of it.
John Candy: I Like Me (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Zootopia — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Zootopia 2 (2025)
A deliberate change of key after John Candy: I Like Me — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Christopher Guest
Director
6 films together
Notably Best in Show
Byron Howard
Director
2 films together
Notably Zootopia
Hugh Wilson
Director
1 film together
Notably Police Academy
Kenneth Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Short Circuit 2
James Cameron
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Jim Abrahams
Director
1 film together
Notably Hot Shots!
Peter Segal
Director
1 film together
Notably Grudge Match
Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Dumb and Dumber To
Alexander Payne
Director
1 film together
Notably Downsizing
Rob Reiner
Director
1 film together
Notably Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Colin Hanks
Director
1 film together
Notably John Candy: I Like Me
Josh Greenbaum
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dink
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Christopher Guest
Director
6 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Best in ShowByron Howard
Director
2 films together · 7.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ZootopiaJames Cameron
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator 2: Judgment DayColin Hanks
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John Candy: I Like MeHugh Wilson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Police AcademyJim Abrahams
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot Shots!Josh Greenbaum
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 DinkKenneth Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Short Circuit 2Rob Reiner
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spinal Tap II: The End ContinuesPeter Segal
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grudge MatchBobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dumb and Dumber ToAlexander Payne
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DownsizingSix 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
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Zootopia
as Stu Hopps (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Downsizing
as Leisureland Guide Matt
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
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. Don Lake 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
42 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
17 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
Zootopia 2
as Stu Hopps (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Zootopia
as Stu Hopps (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Zootopia 2
as Stu Hopps (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
as Mossberg
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Zootopia
as Stu Hopps (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Almost Heroes
as Elias
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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