Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7216
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jesse McCartney 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.
Jesse McCartney appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jesse. Secret of the Wings is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, emotional range, 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, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dennis Dugan, Bradley Raymond, Mike Mitchell and others, Jesse McCartney 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.
Secret of the Wings (2012) as Terence (voice) · Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014) as Terence (voice) · Pixie Hollow Games (2011) as Terence (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7216 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2008–2020
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Secret of the Wings
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Secret of the Wings
Most frequent director
Bradley Raymond
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Bradley Raymond
Most common genre
Family
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 18m
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
6.3
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy, Secret of the Wings — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Horton Hears a Who!.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comedy | 6.12 films | 5.82 films | 6.01 film |
| Romance | — | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as JoJo (voice).
Career peak
2009Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2020Love, Weddings & Other Disasters
The current state of the argument, as Lenny.
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 Terence (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Terence (voice)
Directed by Klay Hall
as Terence (voice)
Directed by Bradley Raymond
as Terence (voice)
Directed by Bradley Raymond
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
Terence (voice)
Secret of the Wings (2012)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Terence (voice) gives Jesse McCartney a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Terence (voice)
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009)
Performance score7.2
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terence (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Terence (voice)
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)
Performance score6.9
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terence (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Terence (voice)
Pixie Hollow Games (2011)
Performance score6.9
Pixie Hollow Games asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terence (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 Terence (voice)
Start here. Secret of the Wings is the clearest statement of what Jesse McCartney does — accessible, 75 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jesse 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.
Tinker Bell (2008)
Keeps the fantasy register of Secret of the Wings but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009)
Keeps the fantasy register of Tinker Bell but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pixie Hollow Games (2011)
Keeps the family register of Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)
Keeps the family register of Pixie Hollow Games but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bradley Raymond
Director
3 films together
Notably Pixie Hollow Games
Betty Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Klay Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably Love, Weddings & Other Disasters
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bradley Raymond
Director
3 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Pixie Hollow GamesKlay Hall
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tinker Bell and the Lost TreasureDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love, Weddings & Other DisastersMike Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alvin and the Chipmunks: ChipwreckedBetty Thomas
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The SqueakquelSix 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
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (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
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (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
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (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. Jesse McCartney 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.
Family Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in family, 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
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue
as Terence (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Secret of the Wings
as Terence (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tinker Bell
as Terence (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
as Theodore (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy
as Terence (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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