Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13366
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Stephen Kearin works on versatility 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.
Stephen Kearin appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Stephen. Kung Fu Panda is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, comedy. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Tim Johnson, Eric Darnell and others, Stephen Kearin 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.
Kung Fu Panda (2008) as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice) · Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) as Musician Pig / Awesome Pig (voice) · Megamind (2010) as Mayor (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #13366 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2008–2023
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Kung Fu Panda
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Kung Fu Panda
Most frequent director
Eric Darnell
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Eric Darnell
Most common genre
Family
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 22m
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
6.5
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Monsters vs Aliens, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Kung Fu Panda — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Monsters vs Aliens, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Kung Fu Panda.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Action | 7.51 film | 7.03 films | — |
| Comedy | 7.12 films | 6.98 films | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Stephen the Giraffe / Tourist with Video Camera / Rhino (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008Kung Fu Panda
7.5 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 Various Characters (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.
13 of 13 films
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
Directed by Mark Osborne
as Musician Pig / Awesome Pig (voice)
Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson
as Mayor (voice)
Directed by Tom McGrath
as Father / Village Bunny (voice)
Directed by Tim Johnson
as Master Chicken (voice)
Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson
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
Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice) gives Stephen Kearin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Musician Pig / Awesome Pig (voice)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Performance score7.0
Kung Fu Panda 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Musician Pig / Awesome Pig (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mayor (voice)
Megamind (2010)
Performance score6.9
Megamind asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mayor (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Father / Village Bunny (voice)
Kung Fu Panda Holiday (2010)
Performance score6.9
Kung Fu Panda Holiday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Father / Village Bunny (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 Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
Start here. Kung Fu Panda is the clearest statement of what Stephen Kearin does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Stephen 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.
Megamind (2010)
Keeps the action register of Kung Fu Panda but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kung Fu Panda Holiday (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Megamind but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
Keeps the comedy register of Kung Fu Panda Holiday but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
Same director as Kung Fu Panda 2, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Eric Darnell
Director
3 films together
Notably Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
Tim Johnson
Director
2 films together
Notably Kung Fu Panda Holiday
Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Director
2 films together
Notably Kung Fu Panda 2
Mark Osborne
Director
1 film together
Notably Kung Fu Panda
Rob Letterman
Director
1 film together
Notably Monsters vs Aliens
Tom McGrath
Director
1 film together
Notably Megamind
Simon Wells
Director
1 film together
Notably Mars Needs Moms
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Eric Darnell
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
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most WantedJennifer Yuh Nelson
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Kung Fu Panda 2Tim Johnson
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Kung Fu Panda HolidayMark Osborne
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kung Fu PandaTom McGrath
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MegamindRob Letterman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Monsters vs AliensSimon Wells
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mars Needs MomsSix 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
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (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
Mars Needs Moms
as Martian
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
as Stephen the Giraffe / Tourist with Video Camera / Rhino (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (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. Stephen Kearin 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.
Family Legend
Awarded
13 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
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mars Needs Moms
as Martian
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Magician's Elephant
as Various Characters (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kung Fu Panda
as Gong Pig / Grateful Bunny (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kung Fu Panda 3
as Master Chicken (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Kung Fu Panda 3
as Master Chicken (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Monsters vs Aliens
as Technician Bee (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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