Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16650
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ashley Peldon represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Ashley is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ashley Peldon appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ashley. The Mitchells vs. the Machines is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, adventure, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mike Rianda, Terry Zwigoff, Mark Dindal and others, Ashley Peldon 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 Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) as Additional Voices (voice) · Ghost World (2001) as Margaret · Cats Don't Dance (1997) as Darla Dimple (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #16650 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1996–2021
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Most frequent director
Mike Rianda
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Mike Rianda
Most common genre
Comedy
5 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
6.6
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
2020s
7.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Mitchells vs. the Machines — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Cats Don't Dance, The Crucible.
Most productive era
1990s
2 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | 7.11 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 6.42 films | 6.11 film | 7.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996The Crucible
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ruth Putnam.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2021The Mitchells vs. the Machines
7.7 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. The current state of the argument, as Additional Voices (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.
6 of 6 films
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Mike Rianda
as Margaret
Directed by Terry Zwigoff
as Darla Dimple (voice)
Directed by Mark Dindal
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Additional Voice (voice)
Directed by Unknown
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
Additional Voices (voice)
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Additional Voices (voice) gives Ashley Peldon a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Margaret
Ghost World (2001)
Performance score7.0
Ghost World asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Margaret is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Darla Dimple (voice)
Cats Don't Dance (1997)
Performance score7.0
Cats Don't Dance asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Darla Dimple (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Additional Voices (voice)
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
Performance score6.5
Ice Age: Collision Course asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (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 Additional Voices (voice)
Start here. The Mitchells vs. the Machines is the clearest statement of what Ashley Peldon does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ashley 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.
Cats Don't Dance (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of The Mitchells vs. the Machines but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ghost World (2001)
Keeps the comedy register of Cats Don't Dance but asks for a colder reading of it.
Aliens in the Attic (2009)
Keeps the comedy register of Ghost World but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
Same director as Aliens in the Attic, 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.
Nicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Crucible
Mark Dindal
Director
1 film together
Notably Cats Don't Dance
Terry Zwigoff
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghost World
Mike Rianda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mike Rianda
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Mitchells vs. the MachinesTerry Zwigoff
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghost WorldMark Dindal
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cats Don't DanceNicholas Hytner
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 CrucibleSix 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 Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (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
The Crucible
as Ruth Putnam
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 Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (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. Ashley Peldon 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
25 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
5 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 Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Crucible
as Ruth Putnam
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
as Additional Voices (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Cats Don't Dance
as Darla Dimple (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ghost World
as Margaret
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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
Catherine Lagaʻaia
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and family
Dwayne Johnson
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and family
Rena Owen
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and family
Have your say
Community
Which Ashley Peldon performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
