Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#444
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mae Whitman represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Mae is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mae Whitman appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mae. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 romance, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Dax Shepard, Ash Brannon and others, Mae Whitman 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 Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) as Mary Elizabeth · Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) as Roxy Richter · Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014) as Tinker Bell (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #444 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1994–2020
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Most frequent director
Bradley Raymond
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Bradley Raymond
Most common genre
Family
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
6.6
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. CHiPs, Rock Dog, Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Gingerbread Man, Hope Floats, Independence Day.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.52 films | 6.31 film | 7.81 film | — |
| Action | 7.11 film | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | 5.61 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.51 film | 6.63 films | 5.71 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 6.53 films | 6.31 film | 7.51 film | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Casey Green.
Highest rated performance
2012The Perks of Being a Wallflower
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2020Valley Girl
The current state of the argument, as Jack.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Tinker Bell (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Tinker Bell (voice)
Directed by Steve Loter
as Tinker Bell (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Tinker Bell (voice)
Directed by Bradley Raymond
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
Tinker Bell (voice)
Secret of the Wings (2012)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tinker Bell (voice) gives Mae Whitman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mary Elizabeth
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Performance score7.8
The Perks of Being a Wallflower asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary Elizabeth is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tinker Bell (voice)
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014)
Performance score7.7
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tinker Bell (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tinker Bell (voice)
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)
Performance score7.6
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tinker Bell (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 Tinker Bell (voice)
Start here. Secret of the Wings is the clearest statement of what Mae Whitman does — accessible, 75 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mae 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.
Tinker Bell (2008)
Keeps the fantasy register of Secret of the Wings but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Tinker Bell — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014)
A deliberate change of key after The Perks of Being a Wallflower — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)
Keeps the family register of Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bradley Raymond
Director
3 films together
Notably Pixie Hollow Games
Luis Mandoki
Director
1 film together
Notably When a Man Loves a Woman
Michael Hoffman
Director
1 film together
Notably One Fine Day
Roland Emmerich
Director
1 film together
Notably Independence Day
Forest Whitaker
Director
1 film together
Notably Hope Floats
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gingerbread Man
Jeff McGrath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wild Thornberrys Movie
Klay Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Edgar Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Stephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Steve Loter
Director
1 film together
Notably Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast
Ash Brannon
Director
1 film together
Notably Rock Dog
Dax Shepard
Director
1 film together
Notably CHiPs
Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Valley Girl
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bradley Raymond
Director
3 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Pixie Hollow GamesStephen Chbosky
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 Perks of Being a WallflowerEdgar Wright
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scott Pilgrim vs. the WorldSteve Loter
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeastRoland Emmerich
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Independence DayKlay Hall
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tinker Bell and the Lost TreasureLuis 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
When a Man Loves a WomanJeff 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 MovieMichael Hoffman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Fine DayForest Whitaker
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hope FloatsAsh Brannon
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rock DogDax Shepard
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CHiPsRachel Lee Goldenberg
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Valley GirlRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Gingerbread ManSix 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 Perks of Being a Wallflower
as Mary Elizabeth
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Secret of the Wings
as Tinker Bell (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 Perks of Being a Wallflower
as Mary Elizabeth
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
CHiPs
as Beebee
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Secret of the Wings
as Tinker Bell (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. Mae Whitman 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
26 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
9 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
Secret of the Wings
as Tinker Bell (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
as Roxy Richter
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rock Dog
as Darma (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue
as Tinker Bell (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Independence Day
as Patricia Whitmore
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Independence Day
as Patricia Whitmore
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Rock Dog
as Darma (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Independence Day
as Patricia Whitmore
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
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Mae Whitman performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
