Mira Sorvino Biography

Actress. Born September 28, 1968, in Tenafly, New Jersey. Sorvino inherited her acting ability from her father, Paul, a Law and Order veteran whose resume also includes roles in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Oliver Stone's Nixon. Growing up, her father discouraged her from being a child actor, fearing it would be psychologically stressful. Sorvino concentrated on her studies, was accepted to Harvard University, and during a year abroad in Beijing learned to speak fluent Mandarin. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in East Asian studies.

Despite her father's worries, Sorvino appeared in several student productions throughout high school and college. After graduating, she moved to New York and spent three years waiting tables as she tried to make her name as an actress. She first stepped into the spotlight in 1992 in the short-lived syndicated teen serial Swans Crossing. When that ended she landed a role on the soap opera Guiding Light but she turned down a three-year contract there in the hope that better opportunities lay ahead. She was right — just one year later she made her Hollywood debut as Rob Morrow's intellectual wife in Quiz Show (1994), directed by Robert Redford and starring Ralph Fiennes.

Sorvino's breakthrough role was Linda, the squeaky-voiced, bleached blonde prostitute with a heart of gold in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995). The film's casting agents nearly prohibited her from auditioning for the role because she seemed too refined to play a call girl. However, her facility with languages and accents helped her land the role for which she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her then-boyfriend, the writer-director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), escorted her to the ceremony the night she won, but the couple has since broken up.

Sorvino went on to appear in a number of diverse projects, including a turn as Marilyn Monroe in HBO's Norma Jean and Marilyn (1996), costarring Ashley Judd as the legendary sex symbol's more timid side. Sorvino also played an entomologist (the 1997 thriller Mimic), and a kung fu fighter (1998's The Replacement Killers, costarring Chow Yun Fat). She also starred opposite Lisa Kudrow in the comedy Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) and as John Leguizamo's wife in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999). In early 2001, Sorvino starred as Daisy Buchanan in A&E's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age classic, The Great Gatsby, costarring Paul Rudd.

Sorvino married her 22-year-old actor beau Christopher Backus in June 2004.

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