Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11858
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Matthew Lawrence represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Matthew is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Matthew Lawrence appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matthew. Mrs. Doubtfire is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 action, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Andrew Lawrence, Tom Brady, Chris Columbus and others, Matthew Lawrence 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.
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) as Chris Hillard · Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) as Little Neal · Double Threat (2023) as Jimmy
Career snapshot
Ranked #11858 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1987–2023
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Mrs. Doubtfire
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Most frequent director
Andrew Lawrence
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Andrew Lawrence
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.5
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
1980s
7.2 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Planes, Trains and Automobiles — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
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. Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.31 film | — | 6.01 film |
| Action | — | — | — | 6.02 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.21 film | — | 5.82 films |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | 6.82 films | 5.72 films | 5.82 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 5.61 film |
| Romance | — | — | — | 5.52 films |
| Horror | — | 6.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Little Neal.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1993Mrs. Doubtfire
7.3 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
2023Double Threat
The current state of the argument, as Jimmy.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Chris Hillard
Directed by Chris Columbus
as Jimmy
Directed by Unknown
as Billy
Directed by Tom Brady
as Timmy (Wraparound Story)
Directed by John Harrison
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
Chris Hillard
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Chris Hillard gives Matthew Lawrence a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Little Neal
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Performance score7.1
Planes, Trains and Automobiles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Little Neal is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jimmy
Double Threat (2023)
Performance score7.0
Double Threat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jimmy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Billy
The Hot Chick (2002)
Performance score6.9
The Hot Chick asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Billy 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 Chris Hillard
Start here. Mrs. Doubtfire is the clearest statement of what Matthew Lawrence does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matthew 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.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Keeps the comedy register of Mrs. Doubtfire but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
Keeps the comedy register of Planes, Trains and Automobiles but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Hot Chick (2002)
Keeps the comedy register of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Double Threat (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of The Hot Chick but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andrew Lawrence
Director
3 films together
Notably My Husband's Secret Brother
Tom Brady
Director
2 films together
Notably The Hot Chick
John Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Planes, Trains and Automobiles
John Harrison
Director
1 film together
Notably Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably Mrs. Doubtfire
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Andrew Lawrence
Director
3 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
My Husband's Secret BrotherTom Brady
Director
2 films together · 5.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Hot ChickChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mrs. DoubtfireJohn Hughes
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Planes, Trains and AutomobilesJohn Harrison
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tales from the Darkside: The MovieSix 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
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
My Husband's Secret Brother
as William
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
as Little Neal
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
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. Matthew Lawrence 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
36 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
7 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
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
as Timmy (Wraparound Story)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
My Husband's Secret Brother
as William
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
as Timmy (Wraparound Story)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Double Threat
as Jimmy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Double Threat
as Jimmy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mrs. Doubtfire
as Chris Hillard
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Elliot Page
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David Krumholtz
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Have your say
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Reference
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