Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5457
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jaboukie Young-White 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.
Jaboukie Young-White appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jaboukie. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 romance, comedy, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Claire Scanlon, Drew Hancock, Chad Hartigan and others, Jaboukie Young-White 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.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023) as Connor (voice) · C'mon C'mon (2021) as Fern · Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) as McNeely (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #5457 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2017–2026
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Most frequent director
Claire Scanlon
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Claire Scanlon
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 32m
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
6.1
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
2010s
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Someone Great, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Set It Up — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Someone Great, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Set It Up.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.71 film | 6.82 films |
| Action | 7.21 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.54 films | 4.54 films |
| Romance | 6.72 films | 3.63 films |
| Horror | — | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Rough Night
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Borat.
Highest rated performance
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2021C'mon C'mon
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 Malcolm.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Connor (voice)
Directed by Kirk DeMicco
as McNeely (voice)
Directed by Phil Johnston
as Teddy
Directed by Drew Hancock
as Assistant Alex
Directed by Claire Scanlon
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
Fern
C'mon C'mon (2021)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Fern gives Jaboukie Young-White a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Connor (voice)
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
Performance score7.1
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Connor (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
McNeely (voice)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Performance score7.1
Ralph Breaks the Internet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. McNeely (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Teddy
Companion (2025)
Performance score6.9
Companion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Teddy 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 Fern
Start here. C'mon C'mon is the clearest statement of what Jaboukie Young-White does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jaboukie 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.
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
A deliberate change of key after C'mon C'mon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Set It Up (2018)
Keeps the comedy register of Ralph Breaks the Internet but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Set It Up but asks for a colder reading of it.
Companion (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Claire Scanlon
Director
2 films together
Notably Set It Up
Lucia Aniello
Director
1 film together
Notably Rough Night
Phil Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably Ralph Breaks the Internet
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Someone Great
Don Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Strange World
Kirk DeMicco
Director
1 film together
Notably Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Chad Hartigan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Threesome
Drew Hancock
Director
1 film together
Notably Companion
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Claire Scanlon
Director
2 films together · 3.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Set It UpKirk DeMicco
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ruby Gillman, Teenage KrakenPhil Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ralph Breaks the InternetDrew Hancock
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CompanionJennifer Kaytin Robinson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Someone GreatChad Hartigan
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 ThreesomeDon Hall
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Strange WorldLucia Aniello
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rough NightSix 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
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as McNeely (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
The Threesome
as Greg
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as McNeely (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as McNeely (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
C'mon C'mon
as Fern
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. Jaboukie Young-White 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
8 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
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
as Connor (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Companion
as Teddy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Threesome
as Greg
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
as Connor (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as McNeely (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as McNeely (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Threesome
as Greg
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
as Connor (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
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Reference
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