Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2589
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Rhys Darby 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.
Rhys Darby appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rhys. The Sheep Detectives 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 family, animation, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kyle Balda, Jake Kasdan, Chantelle Murray and others, Rhys Darby 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 Sheep Detectives (2026) as Wool-Eyes (voice) · Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) as Psycho Sam · Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans (2019) as Master of Games (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2589 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2008–2027
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Sheep Detectives
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Little Lorraine
Most frequent director
Jake Kasdan
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Jake Kasdan
Most common genre
Comedy
17 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
2010s
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Jumanji: The Next Level, Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans, Mosley — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.1
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
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. The Boat That Rocked, Yes Man.
Most productive era
2020s
14 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 | 7.11 film | 7.51 film | 6.43 films |
| Action | — | 7.12 films | 6.43 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | 6.92 films | 7.24 films | 6.011 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Yes Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Norman.
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 (voice).
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.
21 of 21 films
as Wool-Eyes (voice)
Directed by Kyle Balda
as Master of Games (voice)
Directed by Jeff Mednikow
as Psycho Sam
Directed by Taika Waititi
as Nigel
Directed by Jake Kasdan
as Nigel Billingsley
Directed by Jake Kasdan
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
Wool-Eyes (voice)
The Sheep Detectives (2026)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Wool-Eyes (voice) gives Rhys Darby a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Master of Games (voice)
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans (2019)
Performance score7.3
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Master of Games (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Psycho Sam
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
Performance score7.3
Hunt for the Wilderpeople asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Psycho Sam is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nigel
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Performance score7.1
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nigel 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 Wool-Eyes (voice)
Start here. The Sheep Detectives is the clearest statement of what Rhys Darby 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 Rhys 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.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
Keeps the comedy register of The Sheep Detectives but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Keeps the comedy register of Hunt for the Wilderpeople but asks for a colder reading of it.
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans (2019)
Keeps the action register of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jake Kasdan
Director
3 films together
Notably Jumanji: The Next Level
Taika Waititi
Director
2 films together
Notably Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Peyton Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably Yes Man
Richard Curtis
Director
1 film together
Notably The Boat That Rocked
Kirby Atkins
Director
1 film together
Notably Mosley
Jeff Mednikow
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans
Andy Suriano
Director
1 film together
Notably Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie
Hamish Bennett
Director
1 film together
Notably Uproar
Simon Otto
Director
1 film together
Notably That Christmas
Chantelle Murray
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lost Tiger
Kyle Balda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sheep Detectives
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jake Kasdan
Director
3 films together · 4.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jumanji: The Next LevelTaika Waititi
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Hunt for the WilderpeopleKyle 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 DetectivesJeff Mednikow
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen TitansRichard Curtis
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Boat That RockedSimon Otto
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
That ChristmasAndy Suriano
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The MoviePeyton Reed
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Yes ManKirby Atkins
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MosleyChantelle Murray
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lost TigerHamish Bennett
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UproarSix 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 Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (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
Kiff Lore of the Ring Light
as Trollie (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
The Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
That Christmas
as Mr. McNutt (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (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. Rhys Darby 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.
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
The Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Kiff Lore of the Ring Light
as Trollie (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Sheep Detectives
as Wool-Eyes (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
as Nigel
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
as Nigel
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Kiff Lore of the Ring Light
as Trollie (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Love Hurts
as Kippy Betts
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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