Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4187
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Nicholas Braun 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.
Nicholas Braun appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nicholas. The Perks of Being a Wallflower 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 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 mystery, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kyle Balda, Macon Blair, Will Gluck and others, Nicholas Braun 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.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) as Ponytail Derek · The Sheep Detectives (2026) as Officer Tim Derry · One Night Only (2026) as Woodrow K. Mullhand. CFP
Career snapshot
Ranked #4187 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
2005–2026
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
The Sheep Detectives
Most frequent director
Kyle Balda
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Kyle Balda
Most common genre
Comedy
18 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
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
6.3
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. Princess Protection Program, Sky High — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.4
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. Princess Protection Program, Sky High.
Most productive era
2010s
12 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.45 films | 6.42 films |
| Action | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.11 film |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.28 films | 5.88 films |
| Crime | — | — | 3.12 films |
| Romance | — | 6.43 films | 6.62 films |
| Horror | — | 5.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Sky High
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Zachary "Zach" Braun / Zack Attack.
Highest rated performance
2012The Perks of Being a Wallflower
7.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026One Night Only
The current state of the argument, as Woodrow K. Mullhand. CFP.
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.
22 of 22 films
as Officer Tim Derry
Directed by Kyle Balda
as Ed
Directed by Allison Liddi-Brown
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
Officer Tim Derry
The Sheep Detectives (2026)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Officer Tim Derry gives Nicholas Braun a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ponytail Derek
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Performance score7.7
The Perks of Being a Wallflower asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ponytail Derek is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Andy Evans
Good Kids (2016)
Performance score7.1
Good Kids asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Andy Evans is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ed
Princess Protection Program (2009)
Performance score7.0
Princess Protection Program asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ed 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 Officer Tim Derry
Start here. The Sheep Detectives is the clearest statement of what Nicholas Braun does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nicholas 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.
Princess Protection Program (2009)
Keeps the comedy register of The Sheep Detectives but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Princess Protection Program but asks for a colder reading of it.
Date and Switch (2014)
A deliberate change of key after The Perks of Being a Wallflower — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Good Kids (2016)
Same director as Date and Switch, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Sky High
Allison Liddi-Brown
Director
1 film together
Notably Princess Protection Program
Phil Traill
Director
1 film together
Notably Chalet Girl
Stephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Akiva Schaffer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Watch
Jon M. Chu
Director
1 film together
Notably Jem and the Holograms
Glenn Ficarra
Director
1 film together
Notably Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Christian Ditter
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Be Single
Michael Angarano
Director
1 film together
Notably Avenues
Janicza Bravo
Director
1 film together
Notably Zola
Susanna Fogel
Director
1 film together
Notably Cat Person
Kristoffer Borgli
Director
1 film together
Notably Dream Scenario
Jason Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Saturday Night
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably One Night Only
Macon Blair
Director
1 film together
Notably Idiots
Kyle Balda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sheep Detectives
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Perks of Being a WallflowerKyle Balda
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sheep DetectivesWill Gluck
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 Night OnlyKristoffer Borgli
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dream ScenarioJason Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saturday NightAllison Liddi-Brown
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Princess Protection ProgramChristian Ditter
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Be SingleGlenn Ficarra
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Whiskey Tango FoxtrotPhil Traill
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chalet GirlMike Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sky HighJanicza Bravo
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ZolaMichael Angarano
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AvenuesSusanna Fogel
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cat PersonJon M. Chu
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jem and the HologramsAkiva Schaffer
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WatchMacon Blair
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IdiotsSix 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
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
as Ponytail Derek
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Jem and the Holograms
as Brad (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
as Ponytail Derek
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dream Scenario
as Brian Berg
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sheep Detectives
as Officer Tim Derry
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. Nicholas Braun 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
18 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
The Sheep Detectives
as Officer Tim Derry
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Sheep Detectives
as Officer Tim Derry
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Jem and the Holograms
as Brad (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Sheep Detectives
as Officer Tim Derry
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
as Ponytail Derek
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Watch
as Jason
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
as Tall Brian
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Get a Job
as Charlie
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
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
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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