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NYU Stars Shine From the Slopes of Sundance to Awards Show Stages

Joel Coen (TSOA '78) and brother Ethan took home the Best Picture Academy Award for their violent crime thriller No Country for Old Men, which nabbed four of its eight nominations including Best Director. Next up for the brothers is their dark-as-usual comedy Burn After Reading starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt…

Novel-turned-film Beaufort, adapted and directed by Joseph Cedar (TSOA '95) about a group of soldiers during the last days of Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon, scored an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film… Jennifer Fox (GAL '94) was nominated for the Best Picture award as a producer of the film Michael Clayton… Tamara Jenkins (TSOA '94) wrote and directed The Savages, which earned two nominations at the Oscars and four at the Film Independent's Spirit Awards where she won for Best Screenplay. The tragicomedy stars Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman (TSOA '89) as siblings struggling with their father's mental decline. Hoffman, who picked up Best Male Lead at the Spirit Awards, next stars in Synecdoche, New York, which will be screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's (TSOA '80) first turn as a director… At this year's Golden Globes, Kaki King (GAL '01) and Michael Brook (TSOA '91) were nominated for Best Original Score for their work on Sean Penn's Indie hit Into the Wild… Bee Movie, co-directed by Stephen Hickner (TSOA '79) and starring Jerry Seinfeld as a curious bee in the Big Apple, was up for Best Animated Feature… Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld (ARTS '74, TSOA '78) is co-executive producer with fellow alum Dan Jinks (TSOA '85) of ABC's Pushing Daisies, nominated in its first season for a Golden Globe for Best TV Comedy… At the People's Choice Awards, executive producer Katie Jacobs' (TSOA '87) House won Favorite TV Drama while Grey's Anatomy's Chandra Wilson (TSOA '91), as Dr. Miranda Bailey, was voted Favorite Scene Stealing Star… At this year's Sundance Film Festival, writer and director Andrew Fleming (TSOA '85) premiered his comedy Hamlet 2 about a high school drama teacher who pens a sequel to Shakespeare's tragedy in order to save the school's theater department. The film was picked up by Focus Features for $10 million—one of the biggest deals in the festival's history… Clark Gregg's (TSOA '86) dark comedy Choke, which he adapted and directed from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, was also one of the biggest hits at Sundance, and features Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston as a sex-addicted con-man and his insane mother… Director M. Night Shyamalan's (TSOA '92) next sci-fi thriller The Happening is due out this summer, starring Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher on the run from a mysterious virus that causes people to commit suicide… This winter, Justin Bartha (TSOA '00) revived his role as Nicolas Cage's treasure-hunting sidekick in the blockbuster sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets… Julie Benz (TSOA '94) starred alongside Sylvester Stallone in the latest installment of Rambo… Arielle Jacobs (STEINHARDT '05) currently tours the country in the first theatrical production of Disney's wildly popular TV movie High School Musical as super-smart transfer student Gabriella Montez… Justin Zackham (TSOA '94) wrote the screenplay for The Bucket List, which pairs Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as cancer patients who set out on an adventurous road trip.

—RenÉe Alfuso