Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4591
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Phyllis Smith 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.
Phyllis Smith appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Phyllis. Inside Out is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Josh Greenbaum, Pete Docter, Jim Field Smith and others, Phyllis Smith 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.
Inside Out (2015) as Sadness (voice) · Inside Out 2 (2024) as Sadness (voice) · The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) as Andy's mother
Career snapshot
Ranked #4591 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2005–2024
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Inside Out
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Inside Out
Most frequent director
Josh Greenbaum
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Josh Greenbaum
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
2020s
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Inside Out 2, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
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. The 40 Year Old Virgin.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | — | 8.11 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 6.34 films | 6.82 films |
| Romance | 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 Andy's mother.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Inside Out
8.1 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
2024Inside Out 2
The current state of the argument, as Sadness (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.
7 of 7 films
as Sadness (voice)
Directed by Pete Docter
as Sadness (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Lynn Davies
Directed by Jake Kasdan
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
Sadness (voice)
Inside Out (2015)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Sadness (voice) gives Phyllis Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sadness (voice)
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Performance score7.4
Inside Out 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sadness (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Delores
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
Performance score6.5
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Delores is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nancy
Butter (2012)
Performance score6.5
Butter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nancy 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 Sadness (voice)
Start here. Inside Out is the clearest statement of what Phyllis Smith does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Phyllis 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.
Bad Teacher (2011)
Keeps the comedy register of Inside Out but asks for a colder reading of it.
Butter (2012)
Keeps the comedy register of Bad Teacher but asks for a colder reading of it.
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Butter but asks for a colder reading of it.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably The 40 Year Old Virgin
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Teacher
Jim Field Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Butter
Pete Docter
Director
1 film together
Notably Inside Out
Josh Greenbaum
Director
1 film together
Notably Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Pete Docter
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside OutJudd Apatow
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 40 Year Old VirginJosh Greenbaum
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del MarJim Field Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ButterMike 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: ChipwreckedJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad TeacherSix 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
Inside Out
as Sadness (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
Inside Out
as Sadness (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
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The 40 Year Old Virgin
as Andy's mother
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Inside Out
as Sadness (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. Phyllis Smith 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
7 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
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
as Flight Attendant
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Inside Out
as Sadness (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Inside Out
as Sadness (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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