Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7820
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Susie Essman represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Susie is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Susie Essman appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Susie. The Super Bob Einstein Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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 science fiction, comedy, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ken Cunningham, Molly Gordon, Kevin Smith and others, Susie Essman 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 Super Bob Einstein Movie (2021) as Self · Bolt (2008) as Mittens (voice) · LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition (2024) as Gloria (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7820 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1991–2024
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
The Super Bob Einstein Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
The Super Bob Einstein Movie
Most frequent director
Ken Cunningham
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ken Cunningham
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 30m
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
2020s
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition, Theater Camp, The Super Bob Einstein Movie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.6
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 Siege, Volcano, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.22 films | — | — | — |
| Action | 6.23 films | 5.81 film | 5.61 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 6.32 films | 5.61 film | 6.52 films |
| Crime | 6.31 film | 5.81 film | 5.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1991Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Soho Woman.
Career peak
2008Bolt
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2021The Super Bob Einstein Movie
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition
The current state of the argument, as Gloria (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.
9 of 9 films
as Mittens (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
as Gloria (voice)
Directed by Ken Cunningham
as Woman in Hospital Bed (uncredited)
Directed by Molly Gordon
as Laura
Directed by Kevin Smith
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
Self
The Super Bob Einstein Movie (2021)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Susie Essman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mittens (voice)
Bolt (2008)
Performance score7.1
Bolt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mittens (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Gloria (voice)
LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition (2024)
Performance score6.5
LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gloria (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Woman in Hospital Bed (uncredited)
Theater Camp (2023)
Performance score6.5
Theater Camp asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Woman in Hospital Bed (uncredited) 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 Self
Start here. The Super Bob Einstein Movie is the clearest statement of what Susie Essman does — accessible, 78 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Susie 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.
Bolt (2008)
A deliberate change of key after The Super Bob Einstein Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cop Out (2010)
Keeps the comedy register of Bolt but asks for a colder reading of it.
Theater Camp (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Cop Out but asks for a colder reading of it.
LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Theater Camp but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Pressman
Director
1 film together
Notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably Volcano
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Siege
Les Mayfield
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Bolt
Kevin Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Cop Out
Molly Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Theater Camp
Ken Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BoltKen Cunningham
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LEGO Marvel Avengers: Mission DemolitionMolly Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Theater CampEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SiegeMichael Pressman
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the OozeMick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VolcanoLes Mayfield
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ManKevin Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cop OutSix 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
Bolt
as Mittens (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
Bolt
as Mittens (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 Super Bob Einstein Movie
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Theater Camp
as Woman in Hospital Bed (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Super Bob Einstein Movie
as Self
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. Susie Essman 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
33 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
6 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 Super Bob Einstein Movie
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Siege
as Protest Speaker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bolt
as Mittens (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Siege
as Protest Speaker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
as Soho Woman
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
as Soho Woman
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bolt
as Mittens (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bolt
as Mittens (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
Which Susie Essman 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
