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Academy Awards trivia

By Gina McIntyre / Los Angeles Times
Published: February 22. 2013 4:00AM PST

Pronunciation primer

Quvenzhané Wallis (Kwah-VEN-zhah-nay): The 9-year-old, Louisiana-born star of “Beasts of the Southern Wild" is the tiniest nominee in the lead actress category, but her moniker is big. Still stumped? Just call her by her nickname, Nayzie.

Behn Zeitlin (Ben ZITE-lin): Nothing fancy here, folks. The H is silent in the New York-born “Beasts" director’s first name, as in other famous Bens like Affleck, Franklin and Folds Five. And “Zeit" rhymes with “might."

Michael Haneke (Mik-ALE HAN-uh-ka): The Austrian writer-director of “Amour" is known for the dark subject matter of his films. But when it comes to his name, think festival of lights. “Haneke" sounds like “Hanukkah."

Janusz Kaminski (YAN-ush Ka-MIN-ski): Steven Spielberg’s Polish cinematographer just received his sixth Oscar nomination with his work on “Lincoln," which makes it a fine time to finally start saying his name right. The “sz" in Janusz sounds like “shhhh."

John Gatins (GAYT-ins): He’s nominated in the original screenplay category for “Flight." And his last name sounds like “gate."

Christoph Waltz (Kris-TOFF Valtz): Nominated for supporting actor, Waltz is German-Austrian, which means the W in his last name sounds like a V. And “Christoph" is no typo — leave off the “er."

Ang Lee: The Taiwan-born director of “Life of Pi" added the G to masculinize his name among English speakers. “Ang" rhymes with “Tang," not “Gong." Still confused? Be respectful and call him Mr. Lee.
— Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — The 85th Academy Award nominations yields some fun trivia.

For instance:

• There are four first-time nominees in the lead acting categories: Bradley Cooper (“Silver Linings Playbook"), Hugh Jackman (“Les Misérables"), Emmanuelle Riva (“Amour") and Quvenzhané Wallis (“Beasts of the Southern Wild").

• France’s Riva, 85, is the oldest lead actress nominee in Academy Awards history; Wallis, 9, is the youngest. Gloria Stuart, who was 87 when she was nominated for her supporting performance in “Titanic," stands as the oldest nominee. The youngest actor to ever be nominated was 8-year-old Justin Henry for “Kramer Vs. Kramer."

• Nine of the 20 acting nominees — Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Christoph Waltz, Sally Field and Helen Hunt — are previous Oscar winners in the acting races.

• “Lincoln’s" Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg share the record for the most best picture nominations with eight each.

• “Amour" is the fifth film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Film. It joins the ranks of “Z," “The Emigrants," “Life Is Beautiful" and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

• “Silver Linings Playbook" is the first film with nominations for Best Picture, director, screenplay and all four acting categories since Warren Beatty’s 1981 epic “Reds."

• John Williams has more nominations than any other living person, with 48. The only person with more is Walt Disney. He had 59. Woody Allen is the runner-up with 23.

• Michael Kahn is the most nominated film editor; he receives his eighth nomination this year for “Lincoln."

• Thomas Newman earns his 11th nomination with his score for the James Bond film “Skyfall." The Newman family — Alfred, Lionel, Emil, Thomas, David and Randy — now have 87 nominations altogether.

• Similarly, Roman Coppola, who was nominated with Wes Anderson for their original screenplay for “Moonrise Kingdom," is the sixth member of the Coppola clan to receive a nomination — he joins Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Talia Shire, Nicolas Cage and Sofia Coppola — bringing the family total to 24 nominations.

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