Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#526
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cree Summer represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Cree is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cree Summer appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cree. Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 romance, tv movie, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Stanley M. Brooks, Aaron Horvath, Dave Cunningham and others, Cree Summer 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.
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again (2026) as Vanessa · Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006) as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice) · The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) as Additional Voices (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #526 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.5
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
Most frequent director
Stanley M. Brooks
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Stanley M. Brooks
Most common genre
Animation
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 24m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.8
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
7.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Tidal Zone: SpongeBob Universe Special — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.3
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.3
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. Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O., Atlantis: Milo's Return, The Wild Thornberrys Movie.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | — | 6.51 film | 8.51 film |
| Action | 7.22 films | — | 5.91 film |
| Comedy | 7.32 films | 6.11 film | 6.93 films |
| Romance | — | — | 8.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Princess 'Kida' Kidagakash (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
8.5 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 Vanessa.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Vanessa
Directed by Stanley M. Brooks
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
Directed by Tom Warburton
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Princess 'Kida' Kidagakash (voice)
Directed by Kirk Wise
as Bunny Star
Directed by Dave Cunningham
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
Vanessa
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again (2026)
Performance score8.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Vanessa gives Cree Summer a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006)
Performance score8.0
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Additional Voices (voice)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Performance score7.6
The Super Mario Bros. Movie 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 movie#4
Princess 'Kida' Kidagakash (voice)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Performance score7.5
Atlantis: The Lost Empire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Princess 'Kida' Kidagakash (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 Vanessa
Start here. Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again is the clearest statement of what Cree Summer does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cree 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.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
A deliberate change of key after Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. (2006)
Keeps the science fiction register of Atlantis: The Lost Empire but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O. but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Tidal Zone: SpongeBob Universe Special (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of The Super Mario Bros. Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kirk Wise
Director
1 film together
Notably Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Jeff McGrath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wild Thornberrys Movie
Toby Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably Atlantis: Milo's Return
Tom Warburton
Director
1 film together
Notably Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
Charles Murray
Director
1 film together
Notably #truth
Sam Liu
Director
1 film together
Notably Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
Katie Rice
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse
Dave Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably The Tidal Zone: SpongeBob Universe Special
Aaron Horvath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Stanley M. Brooks
Director
1 film together
Notably Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stanley M. Brooks
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Toni Braxton’s Breathe AgainTom Warburton
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.Aaron Horvath
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 Super Mario Bros. MovieDave Cunningham
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 Tidal Zone: SpongeBob Universe SpecialKirk Wise
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Atlantis: The Lost EmpireSam Liu
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wonder Woman: BloodlinesCharles Murray
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
#truthJeff McGrath
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 Wild Thornberrys MovieToby Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Atlantis: Milo's ReturnMike Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of WaterKatie Rice
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the MultiverseSix 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
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
as Vanessa
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
as Vanessa
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
as Vanessa
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
as Vanessa
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. Cree Summer 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in animation, 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
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Toni Braxton’s Breathe Again
as Vanessa
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation Z.E.R.O.
as Abigail 'Numbuh 5' Lincoln / Former Numbuh 11 - Cree Lincoln (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Tom Wilkinson
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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