Oscar wins for two Yale alumni

Five alumni — Meryl Streep, Lupita Nyong’o, Adam Stockhausen, Robert Lopez, and Thomas Newman — were nominees at the Academy Awards, and two walked away with Oscars.

Yale is proud to have had five alumni — Meryl Streep, Lupita Nyong’o, Adam Stockhausen, Robert Lopez, and Thomas Newman — as nominees at the Academy Awards on March 2.

And while it is certainly an honor just to be nominated, our congratulations go out to the two Oscar winners, Lopez, who, along with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, won Best Original Song for the ballad “Let It Go” from the movie “Frozen,” and Nyong’o, for her win as Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “12 Years a Slave.”

With his win, Lopez, who is a 1997 Yale College graduate, became only the 12th person, and the youngest ever, to achieve an EGOT sweep — an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.

In her acceptance speech, Nyong’o, who is a 2012 graduate of the Yale School of Drama, said, “I want to thank my family, for your training, and the Yale School of Drama as well, for your training.”

“I am thrilled for Lupita, and filled with admiration, both because her performance was so remarkable, and because she has so graciously and eloquently expressed the importance of ‘12 Years a Slave’ by representing the film throughout this awards season,” says James Bundy, dean of the Yale School of Drama. “And I’m thrilled for the world, because this is only her first work to be seen after leaving Yale, and there is so much more to come. She is capable of an astonishing range of roles: those of us who saw her in new plays, as well as works by Anton Chekhov, William Shakespeare, and Gertrude Stein, know that, whatever the medium, she will be revealing profound truths of the human condition for many years to come.”

Streep, a 1975 graduate of Yale School of Drama, was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in “August: Osage County.”  She has been nominated 18 times and has won three Academy Awards, two for best actress and one for best supporting actress.

Newman, a 1977 Yale College graduate and 1978 graduate of Yale School of Music, was nominated for his original score for “Saving Mr. Banks.” Stockhausen, who earned his M.F.A. at Yale School of Drama in 1999, was nominated for production design for “12 Years a Slave.”

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Bess Connolly : elizabeth.connolly@yale.edu,