Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7368
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Don Stark represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 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 Stark appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Don. Green Book 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, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Eric Balfour, Peter Farrelly, Woody Allen and others, Don Stark 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.
Green Book (2018) as Jules Podell · Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as Nicky the nose · Maverick (1994) as Riverboat Poker Player (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7368 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1986–2019
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Green Book
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Green Book
Most frequent director
Eric Balfour
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Eric Balfour
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Star Trek: First Contact, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Maverick — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.7
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. Peggy Sue Got Married.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.11 film | 6.72 films | 7.42 films |
| Action | — | 7.12 films | 6.41 film |
| Thriller | — | 7.31 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | 6.62 films | 6.54 films |
| Crime | — | 6.51 film | 6.11 film |
| Romance | — | — | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Doug Stell.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Green Book
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
20197 Days to Vegas
The current state of the argument, as Angry Jim.
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 Jules Podell
Directed by Peter Farrelly
as Nicky the nose
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
as Riverboat Poker Player (uncredited)
Directed by Richard Donner
as Angry Jim
Directed by Eric Balfour
as Sol
Directed by Woody Allen
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Jules Podell
Green Book (2018)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jules Podell gives Don Stark a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nicky the nose
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Performance score7.2
Star Trek: First Contact asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nicky the nose is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Riverboat Poker Player (uncredited)
Maverick (1994)
Performance score6.8
Maverick asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Riverboat Poker Player (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Angry Jim
7 Days to Vegas (2019)
Performance score6.5
7 Days to Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Angry Jim 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 Jules Podell
Start here. Green Book is the clearest statement of what Don Stark does — accessible, 130 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.
Maverick (1994)
Keeps the comedy register of Green Book but asks for a colder reading of it.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Keeps the action register of Maverick but asks for a colder reading of it.
Café Society (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Star Trek: First Contact — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
7 Days to Vegas (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of Café Society but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably Peggy Sue Got Married
Tom Stern
Director
1 film together
Notably Freaked
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Maverick
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Jonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: First Contact
Andrew Stanton
Director
1 film together
Notably John Carter
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Café Society
Peter Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Green Book
Eric Balfour
Director
1 film together
Notably 7 Days to Vegas
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Peter Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Green BookJonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: First ContactRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaverickGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Things to Do in Denver When You're DeadWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Café SocietyAndrew Stanton
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John CarterTom Stern
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FreakedFrancis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peggy Sue Got MarriedEric Balfour
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
7 Days to VegasSix 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
Green Book
as Jules Podell
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Café Society
as Sol
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Green Book
as Jules Podell
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Maverick
as Riverboat Poker Player (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Green Book
as Jules Podell
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 Stark 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
33 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
7 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
Green Book
as Jules Podell
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Star Trek: First Contact
as Nicky the nose
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Café Society
as Sol
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Peggy Sue Got Married
as Doug Stell
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Trek: First Contact
as Nicky the nose
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
John Carter
as Dix the Storekeeper
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Green Book
as Jules Podell
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Green Book
as Jules Podell
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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