Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1817
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cheri Oteri represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Cheri is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cheri Oteri appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cheri. Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation 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, documentary, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Tiddes, Jessica McKenna, Peter Hastings and others, Cheri Oteri 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.
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024) as Gwendolyn Zapp (voice) · Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! (2021) as Lazlo the Mechanic · Dog Man (2025) as Mayor (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1817 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1997–2026
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation
Most frequent director
Michael Tiddes
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Tiddes
Most common genre
Comedy
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 26m
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
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Small Soldiers, Liar Liar, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.6
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. Small Soldiers, Liar Liar, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
Most productive era
2020s
11 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 | — | — | — | 2.92 films |
| Action | 6.61 film | — | — | 7.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.73 films | 6.33 films | 5.82 films | 4.77 films |
| Crime | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997Liar Liar
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jane.
Highest rated performance
2021Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2024Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Moments of Youth
The current state of the argument, as Mrs. Popodopolous.
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 Gwendolyn Zapp (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Lazlo the Mechanic
Directed by Jonathan Stern
as Mayor (voice)
Directed by Peter Hastings
as Gail Hailstorm
Directed by Michael Tiddes
as Jane
Directed by Tom Shadyac
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
Gwendolyn Zapp (voice)
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation (2024)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gwendolyn Zapp (voice) gives Cheri Oteri a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lazlo the Mechanic
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! (2021)
Performance score7.5
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lazlo the Mechanic is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mayor (voice)
Dog Man (2025)
Performance score7.2
Dog Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mayor (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gail Hailstorm
Scary Movie (2026)
Performance score6.7
Scary Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gail Hailstorm 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 Gwendolyn Zapp (voice)
Start here. Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation is the clearest statement of what Cheri Oteri does — accessible, 82 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cheri 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.
Liar Liar (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation but asks for a colder reading of it.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Liar Liar — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dog Man (2025)
Keeps the adventure register of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now! but asks for a colder reading of it.
Scary Movie (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Dog Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Liar Liar
Joe Dante
Director
1 film together
Notably Small Soldiers
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Director
1 film together
Notably Scary Movie
John A. Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ant Bully
Chris Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Shrek the Third
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably Grown Ups 2
Jonathan Stern
Director
1 film together
Notably Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
Peter Hastings
Director
1 film together
Notably Dog Man
Jessica McKenna
Director
1 film together
Notably Mock Trial
Michael Tiddes
Director
1 film together
Notably Scary Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jonathan Stern
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!Peter Hastings
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dog ManMichael Tiddes
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scary MovieTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Liar LiarJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Austin Powers: International Man of MysteryKeenen Ivory Wayans
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scary MovieJoe Dante
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Small SoldiersChris Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shrek the ThirdDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grown Ups 2John A. Davis
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ant BullyJessica McKenna
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mock TrialSix 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
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation
as Gwendolyn Zapp (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
Shrek the Third
as Sleeping Beauty / Actress (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
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
as Lazlo the Mechanic
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
as Flight Attendant (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation
as Gwendolyn Zapp (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. Cheri Oteri 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
29 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
15 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
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
as Lazlo the Mechanic
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
as Lazlo the Mechanic
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Shrek the Third
as Sleeping Beauty / Actress (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now!
as Lazlo the Mechanic
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dog Man
as Mayor (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Dog Man
as Mayor (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dog Man
as Mayor (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Scary Movie
as Gail Hailstorm
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Matt Damon
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Morgan Freeman
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Jamie Harris
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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