Rent film star Rosario Dawson, Dame Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh and Philip Seymour Hoffman were among the nominees for the 10th Annual Satellite Awards, which will be presented on December 17 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
The awards honor artists in the fields of film, television, DVDs and games; there are 46 categories of nominations. Dozens of theatre veterans picked up acting nominations, but Felicity Huffman (Speed-the-Plow) and Kristen Bell (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) were twice-honored--for Transamerica and "Desperate Housewives," and "Veronica Mars" and Showtime's Reefer Madness, respectively. Branagh (Warm Springs), Dench (Mrs. Henderson Presents), Shirley MacLaine (In Her Shoes), Paul Newman (Empire Falls), Joan Plowright (Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont), Joan Allen (The Upside of Anger), Toni Collette (In Her Shoes), Brian Dennehy (Our Fathers), Hoffman (Capote), Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale), S. Epatha Merkerson ("Lackawanna Blues"), Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) were among the nominated actors who have carved names in the theatre world.
As for writers and directors who have worked in theatre, nominees included director Rob Marshall (Memoirs of a Geisha), and writers Dan Futterman (Capote), Steve Martin (Shopgirl) and Noah Baumbach (who both penned and directed The Squid and the Whale).
In the DVD categories, the collector's edition set of The Wizard of Oz picked up three nominations ("Overall DVD," "DVD Extras," and "Classic DVD"), and the 40th anniversary DVD of The Sound of Music was nomianted for "Classic DVD." Actress Gena Rowlands, actor/director George Clooney, and the cast of the TV series "Rescue Me" (including Steven Pasquale and Daniel Sunjata) were selected to receive special awards.