Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2569
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kate McKinnon 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.
Kate McKinnon appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kate. DC League of Super-Pets 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 documentary, science fiction, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Morgan Neville, Andrew Stanton, Jared Hess and others, Kate McKinnon 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.
DC League of Super-Pets (2022) as Lulu (voice) · Ferdinand (2017) as Lupe (voice) · Ballerina (2016) as Regine / Mother Superior / Felicie's Mother (US version)
Career snapshot
Ranked #2569 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
2013–2026
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
DC League of Super-Pets
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Toy Story of Terror!
Most frequent director
Andrew Stanton
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Andrew Stanton
Most common genre
Comedy
19 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
2010s
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Bombshell, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Irreplaceable You — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 14 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
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. Bombshell, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Irreplaceable You.
Most productive era
2010s
14 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 | 6.53 films | 6.22 films |
| Action | 5.83 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.311 films | 5.68 films |
| Crime | 5.81 film | — |
| Romance | 7.01 film | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
Where our catalogue meets this career, as PEZ Cat (voice). 7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2017Ferdinand
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026The Wrong Girls
The current state of the argument, as Dr. Olsen.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Lupe (voice)
Directed by Carlos Saldanha
as Lulu (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Barbie
Directed by Greta Gerwig
as Glass Half Full Kate
Directed by Stephanie Laing
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
Lupe (voice)
Ferdinand (2017)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lupe (voice) gives Kate McKinnon a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lulu (voice)
DC League of Super-Pets (2022)
Performance score7.3
DC League of Super-Pets asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lulu (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Barbie
Barbie (2023)
Performance score7.2
Barbie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Barbie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Glass Half Full Kate
Irreplaceable You (2018)
Performance score7.1
Irreplaceable You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Glass Half Full Kate 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 Lupe (voice)
Start here. Ferdinand is the clearest statement of what Kate McKinnon does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kate 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.
Ballerina (2016)
Keeps the adventure register of Ferdinand but asks for a colder reading of it.
Irreplaceable You (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Ballerina — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
DC League of Super-Pets (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Irreplaceable You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Barbie (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of DC League of Super-Pets but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Roach
Director
2 films together
Notably Bombshell
Jared Hess
Director
2 films together
Notably A Minecraft Movie
Andrew Stanton
Director
2 films together
Notably Finding Dory
Seth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together
Notably Ted 2
Jason Moore
Director
1 film together
Notably Sisters
Josh Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Office Christmas Party
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghostbusters
Carlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together
Notably Ferdinand
Lucia Aniello
Director
1 film together
Notably Rough Night
Stephanie Laing
Director
1 film together
Notably Irreplaceable You
Susanna Fogel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spy Who Dumped Me
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bubble
Greta Gerwig
Director
1 film together
Notably Barbie
Beth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably SNL50: The Homecoming Concert
Morgan Neville
Director
1 film together
Notably Lorne
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jay Roach
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
BombshellAndrew Stanton
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Finding DoryJared Hess
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
A Minecraft MovieCarlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FerdinandGreta Gerwig
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BarbieStephanie Laing
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Irreplaceable YouMorgan Neville
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LorneBeth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SNL50: The Homecoming ConcertSusanna Fogel
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 Spy Who Dumped MeSeth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ted 2Jason Moore
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SistersLucia 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 NightJosh Gordon
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Office Christmas PartyPaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GhostbustersJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BubbleSix 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
Ferdinand
as Lupe (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
Ballerina
as Regine / Mother Superior / Felicie's Mother (US version)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Toy Story of Terror!
as PEZ Cat (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
SNL50: The Homecoming Concert
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ferdinand
as Lupe (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. Kate McKinnon 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
19 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
Barbie
as Barbie
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
DC League of Super-Pets
as Lulu (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Finding Dory
as Wife Fish (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Celebrity Escape Room
as Self
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ballerina
as Regine / Mother Superior / Felicie's Mother (US version)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Spy Who Dumped Me
as Morgan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Irreplaceable You
as Glass Half Full Kate
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Minecraft Movie
as Alex (voice) (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Bonnie Hunt
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tim Allen
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Joan Cusack
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Greta Lee
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Kate McKinnon performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
