Mira Sorvino biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actress, producer, activist. Born September 28, 1968, in Tenafly, New Jersey. During her three decades as a performer, actress Mira Sorvino has played an impressive mix of roles, from a bubbly prostitute to a scientist, from a master forger to Marilyn Monroe. She may have inherited some of her acting ability from her father, Paul, a veteran performer best known for his many seasons on the popular television crime drama, Law & Order.

Sorvino was also strongly influenced by her mother to pursue social causes. "My mom marched on Washington with Martin Luther King. That my mom, a white middle-class lady, was moved enough to get involved in the civil rights movement made an enormous impression," she later explained to People magazine. A bright student, she excelled at school. While a student at Harvard University, Sorvino wrote her thesis on racial conflict in China. She had spent a year in China as part of a study abroad program and became fluent in Mandarin.

After earning a degree in East Asian studies, Sorvino directed a documentary on anti-Semitism in Russia. She also worked a number of jobs, including serving as a production assistant and a script reader for Robert De Niro. Before long, she decided to pursue acting as a career. Sorvino had done some acting in school, but her father had discouraged her from taking up his profession. "I think he just didn't want rejection as the mainstay of his children's diet," she told Redbook magazine.

Aspiring Actress

For several years, Sorvino struggled to make it as a performer. She had a role in the short-lived syndicated teen serial Swans Crossing in 1992. When that ended, Sorvino landed a role on the soap opera Guiding Light, but she turned down a three-year contract there in the hope that better opportunities laid ahead. She made her film debut in 1993's Amongst Friends, an independent drama. The following year she played Rob Morrow's intellectual wife in Quiz Show (1994), directed by Robert Redford and starring Ralph Fiennes.

Sorvino's breakthrough role was Linda Ash, the squeaky-voiced, bleached blonde prostitute with a heart of gold in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995). She auditioned for the part twice. The first time she was rejected because she was not "sexual" enough. Undeterred, Sorvino met again with Allen while the two were both in London. She came to the meeting dressed provocatively and using a distinctive voice. Her efforts paid off—Allen gave her the role. Sorvino was anxious during the filming. "I was absolutely neurotic doing Mighty Aphrodite. Every night brought a new nervous breakdown. I'd cry and talk to God, I was so nervous. Then the next day, I'd show up and do my scenes," she told Los Angeles magazine.

Sorvino received numerous accolades for her work in Mighty Aphrodite, including the 1996