Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11822
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Joshua Rush works on quiet performance 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.
Joshua Rush appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Joshua. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar is the clearest case: a film rated 6.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for tv movie, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Howy Parkins, Rob Minkoff, Andy Fickman and others, Joshua Rush 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 Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016) as Bunga (voice) · Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) as Carl (voice) · Happy Feet Two (2011) as Additional Voice (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #11822 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2011–2016
Career length
5 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.7
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.7
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Most frequent director
Howy Parkins
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Howy Parkins
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
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
6.1
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
2010s
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Escape from Planet Earth — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Escape from Planet Earth.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2010s |
|---|---|
| Comedy | 6.15 films |
| Romance | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011Happy Feet Two
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Additional Voice (voice).
Highest rated performance
6.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak · Most recent film
2016The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Bunga (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.
6 of 6 films
as Bunga (voice)
Directed by Howy Parkins
as Carl (voice)
Directed by Rob Minkoff
as Young Shanker (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Actor (voice, uncredited)
Directed by Gabriele Muccino
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
Bunga (voice)
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bunga (voice) gives Joshua Rush a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Carl (voice)
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)
Performance score6.6
Mr. Peabody & Sherman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carl (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Young Shanker (voice)
Escape from Planet Earth (2013)
Performance score6.5
Escape from Planet Earth asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Shanker (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Turner Simmons
Parental Guidance (2012)
Performance score6.5
Parental Guidance asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Turner Simmons 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 Bunga (voice)
Start here. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar is the clearest statement of what Joshua Rush does — accessible, 44 minutes, and rated 6.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Joshua 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.
Parental Guidance (2012)
A deliberate change of key after The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Playing for Keeps (2012)
Keeps the comedy register of Parental Guidance but asks for a colder reading of it.
Escape from Planet Earth (2013)
Keeps the comedy register of Playing for Keeps but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)
Keeps the science fiction register of Escape from Planet Earth but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
George Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Feet Two
Gabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together
Notably Playing for Keeps
Andy Fickman
Director
1 film together
Notably Parental Guidance
Rob Minkoff
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lion Guard: Return of the RoarRob Minkoff
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. Peabody & ShermanGeorge Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy Feet TwoAndy Fickman
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Parental GuidanceGabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Playing for KeepsSix 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
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
as Carl (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 Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (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
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
as Carl (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Happy Feet Two
as Additional Voice (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (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. Joshua Rush 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.
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
5 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 Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
as Carl (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Bunga (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
as Carl (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Playing for Keeps
as Actor (voice, uncredited)
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
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