Mira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress.
She came to prominence after winning the Academy Award and Golden Globe for best supporting
actress for her performance in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite.
She is also known for her roles in the films Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Mimic,
The Replacement Killers, Summer of Sam, and more recently Like Dandelion Dust.
She received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role in Norma Jean & Marilyn, and
a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Human Trafficking.
Early life Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in
New York City, New York.
Her mother, Lorraine Ruth Davis, is a drama therapist for Alzheimer's disease patients
and a former actress; her father, Paul Sorvino, is a character actor and director.
She has two siblings, Michael and Amanda.
Sorvino is of Italian descent on her father's side.
Sorvino was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, where she wrote and acted in backyard plays
with her childhood friend Hope Davis and in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood School.
Sorvino was accepted into Harvard University, and studied one year as an exchange student
in Beijing, China, where she became fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
In 1989, she graduated from Harvard magna cum laude with a degree in East Asian Studies.
She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's co-ed a cappella
groups in 1985.
Career Sorvino spent the next three years in New
York City, trying to make a name for herself as an actress.
When the 1993 film Amongst Friends entered pre-production, she was hired as third assistant
director, then was promoted to casting director, then to assistant producer, and was finally
offered a lead role.
Positive reviews opened doors for her.
After small roles in Robert Redford's Quiz Show and Whit Stillman's Barcelona, she was
cast in the 1995 Woody Allen film Mighty Aphrodite.
Her portrayal of a happy go lucky prostitute made her a star, winning her an Academy Award
and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.
Other credits include Romy and Michele's High School Reunion alongside Lisa Kudrow, At First
Sight with Val Kilmer, and Summer of Sam from Spike Lee.
She portrayed Marilyn Monroe for the 1996 HBO film Norma Jean & Marilyn, and the lead
role in the 1997 horror movie Mimic.
In recent years, Sorvino has starred in lower-budget and independent films.
In 2005, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agent in the Lifetime film Human Trafficking.
In February 2008, she guest starred in the "Frozen" episode of the medical television
drama House.
There was talk of making her character, psychiatrist Cate Milton, a recurring character; however,
the writers strike put a temporary freeze on such discussions.
More recently, she starred in Attack on Leningrad, Multiple Sarcasms alongside Timothy Hutton
and Stockard Channing, and Nancy Savoca's Union Square, with Patti Lupone and Tammy
Blanchard.
She was considered for the role of video game heroine Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Apocalypse
before the role was played by British actress Sienna Guillory.
In 2012, the feature film Union Square, co-written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's
Grand Jury Award Winner, Nancy Savoca, was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
In it, Mira co-stars with Patti Lupone, Tammy Blanchard, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli and
Daphne Rubin-Vega.
The movie opened on July 13, 2012 to packed houses in New York City, Los Angeles, and
Toronto, garnering notice and acclaim from major print sources such as the New York Times
and the Los Angeles Times, to online sources like Newsday, Yahoo Voices and the Pasadena
Sun.
In 2012, Mira Sorvino played the Elaine, the mother of the lead, in the film adaptation
of Wendy Mass’s popular children’s book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life.
In 2014, she recurred as Head Detective Betsy Brannigan on the final season of Psych, and
will recur on the fourth season of Falling Skies as a character named Sara.
Personal life
Sorvino met actor Christopher Backus at a friend's charades party in August 2003.
On June 11, 2004, they married in a private civil ceremony at the Santa Barbara, California
courthouse, then later had a hilltop ceremony in Capri, Italy.
The couple have four children: daughters Mattea Angel and Lucia and sons Johnny Christopher
King and Holden Paul Terry Backus.
She had previously dated filmmaker Quentin Tarantino for close to three years in the
1990s.
She has been affiliated with Amnesty International since 2004, and, in 2006, was honored with
Amnesty International’s Artist of Conscience Award given to those who have displayed longstanding
philanthropic and humanist efforts.
Sorvino has been a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking, since 2009 through
2012, and has lobbied Congress to abolish human trafficking in Darfur.
In honor of Sorvino's role as Dr. Susan Tyler, an entomologist who was investigating deadly
insect mutations in the feature film Mimic, a compound excreted by the sunburst diving
beetle as a defensive mechanism was named "mirasorvone" by Thomas Eisner.,
Sorvino was once an atheist but has since become a devout Christian.
Filmography Film
Television References
External links Mira Sorvino at the Internet Movie Database
Mira Sorvino on Twitter Honolulu Advertiser Interview