Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8305
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ashley Benson 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.
Ashley Benson appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ashley. 13 Going on 30 is the clearest case: a film rated 6.8 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, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alex Ross Perry, Chris Columbus, Harmony Korine and others, Ashley Benson 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.
13 Going on 30 (2004) as Six Chick · Christmas Cupid (2010) as Caitlin Quinn · Her Smell (2019) as Roxie Rotten
Career snapshot
Ranked #8305 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2004–2023
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.8
13 Going on 30
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
13 Going on 30
Most frequent director
Alex Ross Perry
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alex Ross Perry
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.2
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. 13 Going on 30 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. 13 Going on 30.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 5.52 films | 4.71 film |
| Action | — | 5.81 film | 5.51 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.13 films |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 5.82 films | 4.42 films |
| Crime | — | 5.31 film | 5.13 films |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 5.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 4.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
200413 Going on 30
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Six Chick. 6.8 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
2023Mob Land
The current state of the argument, as Caroline Conners.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Six Chick
Directed by Unknown
as Kathryn Carlyle
Directed by Unknown
as Amberson girl
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.
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The defining work
#1
Six Chick
13 Going on 30 (2004)
Performance score6.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Six Chick gives Ashley Benson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Caroline Conners
Mob Land (2023)
Performance score6.5
Mob Land asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Caroline Conners is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kathryn Carlyle
Private Property (2022)
Performance score6.5
Private Property asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kathryn Carlyle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Margot
The Loneliest Boy in the World (2022)
Performance score6.5
The Loneliest Boy in the World asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Margot 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 Six Chick
Start here. 13 Going on 30 is the clearest statement of what Ashley Benson does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ashley 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.
Private Property (2022)
Same director as 13 Going on 30, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Loneliest Boy in the World (2022)
Same director as Private Property, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Angry Neighbors (2022)
Same director as The Loneliest Boy in the World, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Mob Land (2023)
Same director as Angry Neighbors, 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.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Gil Junger
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Christmas CupidAlex Ross Perry
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Her SmellChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PixelsHarmony Korine
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spring BreakersSix 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
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Her Smell
as Roxie Rotten
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
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. Ashley Benson 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
5 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
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mob Land
as Caroline Conners
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Her Smell
as Roxie Rotten
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Birthday Cake
as Tracey
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
13 Going on 30
as Six Chick
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mob Land
as Caroline Conners
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Her Smell
as Roxie Rotten
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Christmas Cupid
as Caitlin Quinn
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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