Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3512
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jan Rabson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 35 years in, and Jan is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jan Rabson appears in 23 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jan. WALL·E is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, emotional range. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Cinco Paul, Kyle Balda, Chris Renaud and others, Jan Rabson 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.
WALL·E (2008) as Additional Voices (voice) · Toy Story (1995) as Gas Station Attendant (voice) · Up (2009) as Additional Voices (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3512 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
23
1987–2022
Career length
35 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
WALL·E
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
WALL·E
Most frequent director
John Lasseter
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With John Lasseter
Most common genre
Family
21 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.9
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
7.4 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, The Hunchback of Notre Dame — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.4
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.3
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. Fatal Attraction.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | 6.81 film | 6.92 films | — | — | — |
| Action | — | — | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | — | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.73 films | 7.07 films | 6.96 films | 7.01 film |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987Fatal Attraction
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Party Guest.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008WALL·E
8.4 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
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.
23 of 23 films
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
as Gas Station Attendant (voice)
Directed by John Lasseter
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Pete Docter
as Sparks (voice)
Directed by Lee Unkrich
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Andrew Stanton
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)
WALL·E (2008)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Additional Voices (voice) gives Jan Rabson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Gas Station Attendant (voice)
Toy Story (1995)
Performance score8.0
Toy Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gas Station Attendant (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)
Up (2009)
Performance score7.9
Up 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
Sparks (voice)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Performance score7.8
Toy Story 3 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sparks (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. WALL·E is the clearest statement of what Jan Rabson does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jan 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.
Toy Story (1995)
Keeps the family register of WALL·E but asks for a colder reading of it.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Keeps the adventure register of Toy Story but asks for a colder reading of it.
Up (2009)
Keeps the adventure register of Finding Nemo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Up but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Lasseter
Director
4 films together
Notably Toy Story
Chris Renaud
Director
3 films together
Notably Despicable Me 2
Andrew Stanton
Director
2 films together
Notably WALL·E
Pete Docter
Director
2 films together
Notably Up
Kyle Balda
Director
2 films together
Notably Despicable Me 3
Adrian Lyne
Director
1 film together
Notably Fatal Attraction
Luis Mandoki
Director
1 film together
Notably White Palace
Kirk Wise
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Carlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together
Notably Ice Age: The Meltdown
Phil Lord
Director
1 film together
Notably Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Lee Unkrich
Director
1 film together
Notably Toy Story 3
Cinco Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Minions & More Volume 1
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Lasseter
Director
4 films together · 7.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Toy StoryChris Renaud
Director
3 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Despicable Me 2Andrew Stanton
Director
2 films together · 8.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
WALL·EPete Docter
Director
2 films together · 8.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
UpKyle Balda
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Despicable Me 3Lee Unkrich
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Toy Story 3Kirk Wise
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hunchback of Notre DameCinco Paul
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Minions & More Volume 1Carlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ice Age: The MeltdownPhil Lord
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cloudy with a Chance of MeatballsAdrian Lyne
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fatal AttractionLuis Mandoki
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
White PalaceSix 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
WALL·E
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 Hunchback of Notre Dame
as Additional Voices (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
Toy Story
as Gas Station Attendant (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Cars
as Additional Voices (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
WALL·E
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. Jan Rabson 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
35 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.
Family Legend
Awarded
21 catalogue titles in family, 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
WALL·E
as Additional Voices (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
WALL·E
as Additional Voices (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
as Additional Voices (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Monsters University
as Additional Voices (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Finding Nemo
as Additional Voices (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Despicable Me 3
as Additional Voice (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Despicable Me 3
as Additional Voice (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Toy Story
as Gas Station Attendant (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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