Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1828
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Yeardley Smith represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Yeardley is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Yeardley Smith appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yeardley. The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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, animation, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Matthew Nastuk, Debbie Bruce Mahan, Mike B. Anderson and others, Yeardley Smith 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 Simpsons: A Serious Flanders (2021) as Lisa Simpson (voice) · As Good as It Gets (1997) as Jackie Simpson · The Good, the Bart, and the Loki (2021) as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1828 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1991–2027
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
Most frequent director
David Silverman
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With David Silverman
Most common genre
Comedy
18 titles
Average runtime
1h 5m
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
7.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Simpsons Movie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
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
2000s
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. As Good as It Gets, Jingle All the Way, City Slickers.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | 7.41 film | — | 4.61 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 10.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.73 films | 7.21 film | 5.43 films | 5.711 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 8.62 films |
| Romance | 7.41 film | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1991City Slickers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Nancy.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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 Lisa Simpson (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.
19 of 19 films
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Directed by Debbie Bruce Mahan
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Directed by David Silverman
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Directed by David Silverman
as Lisa (voice)
Directed by Debbie Bruce Mahan
as Jackie Simpson
Directed by James L. Brooks
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
Lisa Simpson (voice)
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders (2021)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lisa Simpson (voice) gives Yeardley Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lisa Simpson (voice)
The Good, the Bart, and the Loki (2021)
Performance score7.3
The Good, the Bart, and the Loki asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lisa Simpson (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Lisa Simpson (voice)
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Performance score7.3
The Simpsons Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lisa Simpson (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lisa (voice)
Simpsley (2026)
Performance score7.2
Simpsley asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lisa (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 Lisa Simpson (voice)
Start here. The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders is the clearest statement of what Yeardley Smith does — accessible, 44 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yeardley 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.
As Good as It Gets (1997)
Keeps the comedy register of The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Keeps the comedy register of As Good as It Gets but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Good, the Bart, and the Loki (2021)
Same director as The Simpsons Movie, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Simpsley (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of The Good, the Bart, and the Loki but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Silverman
Director
6 films together
Notably The Good, the Bart, and the Loki
Debbie Bruce Mahan
Director
3 films together
Notably The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
Ron Underwood
Director
1 film together
Notably City Slickers
Brian Levant
Director
1 film together
Notably Jingle All the Way
James L. Brooks
Director
1 film together
Notably As Good as It Gets
Garry Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably New Year's Eve
Valerie Landsburg
Director
1 film together
Notably Love & Debt
Mike B. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Simpsons Funday Football
Matthew Nastuk
Director
1 film together
Notably Extreme Makeover: Homer Edition
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Silverman
Director
6 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Good, the Bart, and the LokiDebbie Bruce Mahan
Director
3 films together · 8.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Simpsons: A Serious FlandersJames L. Brooks
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
As Good as It GetsMatthew Nastuk
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Extreme Makeover: Homer EditionRon Underwood
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City SlickersBrian Levant
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jingle All the WayGarry Marshall
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New Year's EveValerie Landsburg
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love & DebtMike B. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Simpsons Funday FootballSix 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 Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (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
As Good as It Gets
as Jackie Simpson
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 Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Jingle All the Way
as Woman Who Flirts with Howie (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (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. Yeardley Smith 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
18 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 Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
As Good as It Gets
as Jackie Simpson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
City Slickers
as Nancy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Lisa Simpson (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Simpsons Movie
as Lisa Simpson (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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