Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2502
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Gilbert Gottfried represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Gilbert is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Gilbert Gottfried appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Gilbert. Aladdin is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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, fantasy, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ethan Spaulding, Michael Cusack, Scott Mosier and others, Gilbert Gottfried 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.
Aladdin (1992) as Iago (voice) · Minions & More 2 (2022) as Infestor (voice) · Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (2023) as David Doubldy (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2502 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1987–2023
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Aladdin
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Aladdin
Most frequent director
Ethan Spaulding
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ethan Spaulding
Most common genre
Comedy
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 23m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.4
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. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events — 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
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Beverly Hills Cop II.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | 6.61 film | — | — | 4.62 films | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 5.82 films | 6.81 film | 5.45 films | 4.96 films |
| Crime | 6.61 film | — | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.63 films | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 4.62 films | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sidney Bernstein.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1992Aladdin
7.8 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
2023Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match
The current state of the argument, as David Doubldy (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.
21 of 21 films
as Iago (voice)
Directed by John Musker
as Infestor (voice)
Directed by Scott Mosier
as David Doubldy (voice)
Directed by Ethan Spaulding
as Duck (voice) (uncredited)
Directed by Brad Silberling
as Infester (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.
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The defining work
#1
Iago (voice)
Aladdin (1992)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Iago (voice) gives Gilbert Gottfried a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Infestor (voice)
Minions & More 2 (2022)
Performance score7.2
Minions & More 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Infestor (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
David Doubldy (voice)
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (2023)
Performance score6.7
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. David Doubldy (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Duck (voice) (uncredited)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Performance score6.7
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Duck (voice) (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 Iago (voice)
Start here. Aladdin is the clearest statement of what Gilbert Gottfried does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Gilbert 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.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Keeps the adventure register of Aladdin but asks for a colder reading of it.
Super Gidget (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Minions & More 2 (2022)
Keeps the animation register of Super Gidget but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (2023)
Keeps the animation register of Minions & More 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tony Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Beverly Hills Cop II
Amy Heckerling
Director
1 film together
Notably Look Who's Talking Too
John Musker
Director
1 film together
Notably Aladdin
Toby Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Return of Jafar
Tad Stones
Director
1 film together
Notably Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Betty Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Dolittle
Brad Silberling
Director
1 film together
Notably Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Seth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together
Notably A Million Ways to Die in the West
Tony Bancroft
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal Crackers
Scott Mosier
Director
1 film together
Notably Minions & More 2
Michael Cusack
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!
Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Musker
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AladdinScott Mosier
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Minions & More 2Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage MatchBrad Silberling
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsTony Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beverly Hills Cop IIMichael Cusack
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!Tony Bancroft
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Animal CrackersTad Stones
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Aladdin and the King of ThievesToby Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Return of JafarSeth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Million Ways to Die in the WestBetty Thomas
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor DolittleAmy Heckerling
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Look Who's Talking TooSix 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
Aladdin
as Iago (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
Aladdin
as Iago (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
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
as Duck (voice) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Aladdin
as Iago (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. Gilbert Gottfried 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
15 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
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Return of Jafar
as Iago (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match
as David Doubldy (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Aladdin
as Iago (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Doctor Dolittle
as Compulsive Dog (Voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and action
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Dwayne Johnson
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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