Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26466
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Erica Yohn 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.
Erica Yohn appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Erica. The Godfather Part II is the clearest case: a film rated 8.8 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 western, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Phil Nibbelink, Robert K. Weiss, Don Bluth and others, Erica Yohn 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 Godfather Part II (1974) as Governess · An American Tail (1986) as Mama Mousekewitz (voice) · Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) as Madam Ruby
Career snapshot
Ranked #26466 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1974–1991
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.8
The Godfather Part II
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.6
The Godfather Part II
Most frequent director
Phil Nibbelink
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Phil Nibbelink
Most common genre
Comedy
4 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
6.8
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
6.7
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
1970s
8.8 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. The Godfather Part II — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
8.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
8.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Godfather Part II.
Most productive era
1980s
3 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 8.81 film | 6.71 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.43 films | 6.41 film |
| Crime | 8.81 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Governess. 8.8 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
1991An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
The current state of the argument, as Mama Mousekewitz (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.
5 of 5 films
as Governess
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
as Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
Directed by Don Bluth
as Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
Directed by Phil Nibbelink
as Selma (segment "Murray in Videoland")
Directed by Robert K. Weiss
as Madam Ruby
Directed by Tim Burton
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
Governess
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Governess gives Erica Yohn a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
An American Tail (1986)
Performance score7.1
An American Tail asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mama Mousekewitz (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
Performance score6.9
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mama Mousekewitz (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Selma (segment "Murray in Videoland")
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
Performance score6.5
Amazon Women on the Moon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Selma (segment "Murray in Videoland") 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 Governess
Start here. The Godfather Part II is the clearest statement of what Erica Yohn does — accessible, 202 minutes, and rated 8.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Erica 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.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
A deliberate change of key after The Godfather Part II — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
An American Tail (1986)
Keeps the comedy register of Pee-wee's Big Adventure but asks for a colder reading of it.
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
Keeps the comedy register of An American Tail but asks for a colder reading of it.
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
Keeps the comedy register of Amazon Women on the Moon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably The Godfather Part II
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Pee-wee's Big Adventure
Don Bluth
Director
1 film together
Notably An American Tail
Robert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together
Notably Amazon Women on the Moon
Phil Nibbelink
Director
1 film together
Notably An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 8.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Godfather Part IIDon Bluth
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
An American TailTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pee-wee's Big AdventurePhil Nibbelink
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
An American Tail: Fievel Goes WestRobert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Amazon Women on the MoonSix 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 Godfather Part II
as Governess
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
An American Tail
as Mama Mousekewitz (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 Godfather Part II
as Governess
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
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. Erica Yohn 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
4 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 Godfather Part II
as Governess
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
An American Tail
as Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
as Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
as Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Godfather Part II
as Governess
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
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Have your say
Community
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