Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#22316
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Pat Carroll represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Pat is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Pat Carroll appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Pat. Once Upon a Studio is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 comedy, fantasy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dan Abraham, Paul Feig, Richard LaGravenese and others, Pat Carroll 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.
Once Upon a Studio (2023) as Ursula (voice) (archive sound) · Freedom Writers (2007) as Miep Gies · The Little Mermaid (1989) as Ursula (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #22316 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1989–2023
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Once Upon a Studio
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Once Upon a Studio
Most frequent director
Dan Abraham
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Dan Abraham
Most common genre
Family
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
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
6.8
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
2020s
7.7 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Once Upon a Studio — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
8.3
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. The Little Mermaid.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | 7.71 film | — | 7.71 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.01 film | 6.32 films | 6.51 film | 7.71 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.92 films | — | — |
| Romance | — | 7.01 film | — | 6.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ursula (voice). Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2007Freedom Writers
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Ursula (voice) (archive sound).
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.
8 of 8 films
as Ursula (voice)
Directed by John Musker
as Ursula (voice) (archive sound)
Directed by Dan Abraham
as Miep Gies
Directed by Richard LaGravenese
as Additional Voices (voice)
Directed by Kevin Lima
as Ursula (archive footage) (voice)
Directed by Unknown
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
Ursula (voice)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ursula (voice) gives Pat Carroll a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ursula (voice) (archive sound)
Once Upon a Studio (2023)
Performance score7.5
Once Upon a Studio asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ursula (voice) (archive sound) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Miep Gies
Freedom Writers (2007)
Performance score7.5
Freedom Writers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Miep Gies is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Additional Voices (voice)
A Goofy Movie (1995)
Performance score6.9
A Goofy Movie 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 movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Ursula (voice)
Start here. The Little Mermaid is the clearest statement of what Pat Carroll does — accessible, 83 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Pat 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.
A Goofy Movie (1995)
Keeps the family register of The Little Mermaid but asks for a colder reading of it.
Freedom Writers (2007)
A deliberate change of key after A Goofy Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Little Mermaid Live! (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Freedom Writers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Once Upon a Studio (2023)
Keeps the family register of The Little Mermaid Live! but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Musker
Director
1 film together
Notably The Little Mermaid
Kevin Lima
Director
1 film together
Notably A Goofy Movie
Andrew Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Nancy Drew
Richard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together
Notably Freedom Writers
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably Bridesmaids
Dan Abraham
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Studio
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Dan Abraham
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a StudioRichard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freedom WritersJohn Musker
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Little MermaidKevin Lima
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Goofy MoviePaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BridesmaidsAndrew Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nancy DrewSix 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
Freedom Writers
as Miep Gies
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 Little Mermaid
as Ursula (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
Freedom Writers
as Miep Gies
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Once Upon a Studio
as Ursula (voice) (archive sound)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Little Mermaid
as Ursula (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. Pat Carroll 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
34 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
6 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
The Little Mermaid
as Ursula (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Freedom Writers
as Miep Gies
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Goofy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Nancy Drew
as Landlady
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Once Upon a Studio
as Ursula (voice) (archive sound)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
as Morgana (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Goofy Movie
as Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Little Mermaid
as Ursula (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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