Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2065
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Elizabeth Perkins represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Elizabeth is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Elizabeth Perkins appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Elizabeth. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 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 comedy, mystery, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Wain, Paul Feig, Joaquim Dos Santos and others, Elizabeth Perkins 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.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice) · Finding Nemo (2003) as Coral (voice) · My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021) as Phyllis (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2065 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1986–2026
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Most frequent director
Paul Feig
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Paul Feig
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, The Housemaid, Another Simple Favor — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.9
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Big, About Last Night....
Most productive era
2000s
6 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 6.81 film | 6.43 films | — | — |
| Action | — | — | 5.41 film | 5.31 film | 8.51 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.81 film | — | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 5.71 film | 5.83 films | 5.52 films | 6.23 films |
| Romance | 6.11 film | — | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.81 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Joan.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
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.
Most recent film
2026Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
The current state of the argument, as Elizabeth Perkins.
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.
17 of 17 films
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos
as Coral (voice)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
as Susan
Directed by Penny Marshall
as Phyllis (voice)
Directed by José Luis Ucha
as Joyce Sordino
Directed by Jessica Sharzer
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
May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice) gives Elizabeth Perkins a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Coral (voice)
Finding Nemo (2003)
Performance score7.8
Finding Nemo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Coral (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Susan
Big (1988)
Performance score7.6
Big asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Susan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Phyllis (voice)
My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021)
Performance score7.5
My Little Pony: A New Generation asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Phyllis (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 May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
Start here. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the clearest statement of what Elizabeth Perkins does — accessible, 140 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Elizabeth 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.
Big (1988)
A deliberate change of key after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Finding Nemo (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Big — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Speak (2004)
A deliberate change of key after Finding Nemo — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Speak — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Feig
Director
3 films together
Notably The Housemaid
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably About Last Night...
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Big
Les Mayfield
Director
1 film together
Notably Miracle on 34th Street
Brian Levant
Director
1 film together
Notably The Flintstones
Betty Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably 28 Days
Andrew Stanton
Director
1 film together
Notably Finding Nemo
Jessica Sharzer
Director
1 film together
Notably Speak
Hideo Nakata
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ring Two
Gary David Goldberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Must Love Dogs
Tim Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Hop
José Luis Ucha
Director
1 film together
Notably My Little Pony: A New Generation
Joaquim Dos Santos
Director
1 film together
Notably Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Feig
Director
3 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The HousemaidJoaquim Dos Santos
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseAndrew Stanton
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Finding NemoJosé Luis Ucha
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Little Pony: A New GenerationPenny Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BigJessica Sharzer
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpeakLes Mayfield
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miracle on 34th StreetBetty Thomas
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
28 DaysEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
About Last Night...Gary David Goldberg
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Must Love DogsTim Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HopHideo Nakata
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 Ring TwoBrian Levant
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FlintstonesDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex PassSix 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
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (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
Miracle on 34th Street
as Dorey Walker
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ghostbusters
as Phyllis Adler (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (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. Elizabeth Perkins 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
40 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
11 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
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Miracle on 34th Street
as Dorey Walker
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Housemaid
as Mrs. Winchester
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
as May / Quippy Spider-Person (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
My Little Pony: A New Generation
as Phyllis (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Flintstones
as Wilma Flintstone
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
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Bonnie Hunt
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tim Allen
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Joan Cusack
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Greta Lee
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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