Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7847
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sumalee Montano 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.
Sumalee Montano appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sumalee. Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Miguel Puga, Orsi Nagypál, Rick Morales and others, Sumalee Montano 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.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) as Kindra (voice) · Wish Dragon (2021) as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice) · PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021) as Additional Voices (Voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7847 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2011–2024
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Wish Dragon
Most frequent director
Miguel Puga
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Miguel Puga
Most common genre
Animation
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 20m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
2010s
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Justice League vs. the Fatal Five, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 5 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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Justice League vs. the Fatal Five, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.01 film | — |
| Action | 6.84 films | 7.52 films |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.84 films |
| Romance | — | 7.61 film |
| Horror | 7.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Masters
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Su Wu / Wing Wu / Wan Wu (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
7.7 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
The current state of the argument, as Maria (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.
11 of 11 films
as Kindra (voice)
Directed by Rick Morales
as Maria (voice)
Directed by Miguel Puga
as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice)
Directed by Chris Appelhans
as Additional Voices (Voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Mera (voice)
Directed by Ethan Spaulding
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
Kindra (voice)
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kindra (voice) gives Sumalee Montano a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Maria (voice)
The Casagrandes Movie (2024)
Performance score7.4
The Casagrandes Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maria (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice)
Wish Dragon (2021)
Performance score7.4
Wish Dragon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Additional Voices (Voice)
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Performance score7.2
PAW Patrol: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Additional Voices (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 Kindra (voice)
Start here. Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is the clearest statement of what Sumalee Montano does — accessible, 82 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sumalee 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.
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)
Keeps the action register of Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wish Dragon (2021)
Keeps the adventure register of Justice League: Throne of Atlantis but asks for a colder reading of it.
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Wish Dragon but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Casagrandes Movie (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of PAW Patrol: The Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Chang
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman vs. The Elite
Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Dan Trachtenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably 10 Cloverfield Lane
Sam Liu
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League vs. the Fatal Five
Chris Appelhans
Director
1 film together
Notably Wish Dragon
Rick Morales
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
Orsi Nagypál
Director
1 film together
Notably The Deal
Miguel Puga
Director
1 film together
Notably The Casagrandes Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rick Morales
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow BlindChris Appelhans
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wish DragonMiguel Puga
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Casagrandes MovieDan Trachtenberg
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
10 Cloverfield LaneEthan Spaulding
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: Throne of AtlantisMichael Chang
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superman vs. The EliteSam Liu
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League vs. the Fatal FiveOrsi Nagypál
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DealSix 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
Wish Dragon
as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (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
Wish Dragon
as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (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
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
PAW Patrol: The Movie
as Additional Voices (Voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (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. Sumalee Montano 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.
Animation Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in animation, 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
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Wish Dragon
as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind
as Kindra (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
as Mera (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Wish Dragon
as Granny Neighbor / Cougar / Party Guest (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Justice League vs. the Fatal Five
as Emerald Empress (voice)
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
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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