Best Actress nominee Judi Dench (”Notes on a Scandal”) is the only returning performer from last year’s roster. She was up in 2005 for Best Actress for her portrayal of the title character in “Mrs. Henderson Presents.”

More trivia and facts about the week’s Oscar nominations:

    Meryl Streep garnered her 14th nomination,  for her performance in “The Devil Wears Prada.” This adds to her record roster of nominations, in both the Actress and Supporting Actress categories. She’s won once in each category (”Kramer vs. Kramer” for Supporting Actress, “Sophie’s Choice” for Actress). Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn are her closests rivals, with 12 nominations each. Hepburn, whos is deceased, holds the record for most wins — four, all for Best Actress. 

    If Penelope Cruz (”Volver”) or Rinko Kikuchi (”Babel”) win, they will join Sophia Loren (”Two Women”), Robert De Niro (”The Godfather Part II”), Roberto Benigni (”Life Is Beautiful”) and Benicio del Toro (”Traffic”) as the only performers to have won Oscars for performances in a language other than English. Marlee Matlin won Best Actress for her work in “Children of a Lesser God,” in which she performed almost completely in sign language.

    Four out of the five Best Actor nominees are in films that did not garner any other nods. Only Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Blood Diamond” is nominated for an Oscar in another category.

    Five blacks (including one African), two Hispanics and an Asian are nominated for acting awards. Add the four Brits and the Aussie also nominated and you have the most diverse roster of acting nominees in Academy history. The five nominations for black actors tie the number in 2004, although that year Jamie Foxx was nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

    On that note, Streep is the American nominated for Best Actress. She is up against three Brits and a Spaniard.

    One of Streep’s competitors, Kate Winslet (”Little Children”), continues to break age records. At 22 she became the youngest actress to have two nominations. In 2004 she became the only actress to have scored four nominations before the age of 30. She now is the youngest performer, at age 31, to have garnered five Oscar nominations.

    If Peter O’Toole (”Venus”) doesn’t win Best Actor this year, he will be the biggest loser of acting awards in Academy history. He was tied with Richard Burton with seven nominations before his “Venus” bid.

    Sound mixer Kevin O’Connell scored his 19th Oscar nomination for his work on “Apocalypto.” He has never won, making him the biggest loser in Oscar history.

    Oct. 6 was a good day for moviegoers–Best Picture nominees “The Departed” and “The Queen” were both released on that day.

    There is a 38-year interval between Alan Arkin’s last nomination in 1968 for Best Actor for “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and this year’s nod for “Little Miss Sunshine,” tying Jack Palance. However, Helen Hayes went 39 years between acting nominations and Henry Fonda went 41 years.

    Out of the 20 performers nominated this year, only Streep, Dench and Blanchett have won Oscars. Ten out of the 20 nominees have been up before, including those three.
    If “Letters from Iwo Jima,” in which Japanese is spoken, wins Best Picture it will be the first foreign-language film to ever do so. Seven other foreign-language films have been nominated over the years for the top prize.

    If “Little Miss Sunshine” wins Best Picture it will be only the third film — after “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Grand Hotel” — in the 79 years of Oscar history to take the top prize without having its director nominated.

“Dreamgirls” garnered the most nominations this year — eight — but failed to get a Best Picture nod, the first time in Academy history that this has occurred.