Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#17489
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Madison Pettis 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.
Madison Pettis appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Madison. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar is the clearest case: a film rated 6.7 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 Mark Waters, Mike Elliott, Howy Parkins and others, Madison Pettis 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.
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016) as Zuri (voice) · Horton Hears a Who! (2008) as Additional Voices (voice) · The Wrong Paris (2025) as Lexi
Career snapshot
Ranked #17489 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2007–2025
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.7
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
That's What I Am
Most frequent director
Mark Waters
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Mark Waters
Most common genre
Comedy
6 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
6.4
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
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Horton Hears a Who!, The Game Plan — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. Horton Hears a Who!, The Game Plan.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | — | 6.61 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 6.61 film | 6.53 films |
| Romance | — | 6.61 film | 6.52 films |
| Horror | — | — | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007The Game Plan
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Peyton Kelly.
Highest rated performance
6.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2016The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025The Wrong Paris
The current state of the argument, as Lexi.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Zuri (voice)
Directed by Howy Parkins
as Lexi
Directed by Unknown
as Alden
Directed by Mark Waters
as Peyton Kelly
Directed by Andy Fickman
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
Zuri (voice)
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Zuri (voice) gives Madison Pettis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lexi
The Wrong Paris (2025)
Performance score7.0
The Wrong Paris asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lexi is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Alden
He's All That (2021)
Performance score7.0
He's All That asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alden is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Annie
American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules (2020)
Performance score7.0
American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Annie 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 Zuri (voice)
Start here. The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar is the clearest statement of what Madison Pettis does — accessible, 44 minutes, and rated 6.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Madison 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.
The Game Plan (2007)
Keeps the family register of The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar but asks for a colder reading of it.
American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of The Game Plan but asks for a colder reading of it.
He's All That (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Wrong Paris (2025)
Keeps the romance register of He's All That but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andy Fickman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Game Plan
Michael Pavone
Director
1 film together
Notably That's What I Am
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Mike Elliott
Director
1 film together
Notably American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably He's All That
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lion Guard: Return of the RoarMichael Pavone
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
That's What I AmAndy Fickman
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Game PlanMark Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
He's All ThatMike Elliott
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American Pie Presents: Girls' RulesSix 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
The Game Plan
as Peyton Kelly
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
That's What I Am
as Additional Voices (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
Horton Hears a Who!
as Additional Voices (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Horton Hears a Who!
as Additional Voices (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Zuri (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. Madison Pettis 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
6 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
Horton Hears a Who!
as Additional Voices (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Margaux
as Hannah
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
That's What I Am
as Additional Voices (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Horton Hears a Who!
as Additional Voices (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Zuri (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
as Zuri (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
That's What I Am
as Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules
as Annie
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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