Mira
Sorvino
Since her first leading
role as a convict's loyal girlfriend in her friend Rob Weiss's debut
film Amongst Friends (1993), Mira
Sorvino has been on the fast track to stardom, playing
a wide variety of multifaceted characters. Her breakthrough role
displayed her willingness and ability to take on unusual parts:
Sorvino shocked and delighted audiences as a crass New York streetwalker
in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995).
The stretch paid
off: not only did her performance steal the show, it also earned
Mira Sorvino an Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actress. Born in Tenafly, New Jersey, on September 28, 1967, Sorvino
is the daughter of character actor Paul Sorvino, best known for
roles in films like Martin Scorsese's 1990 Goodfellas. Initially,
her father attempted to steer Sorvino and her two siblings away
from the acting profession. He was particularly adamant that his
offspring not do any professional acting during childhood, so Sorvino
contented herself with appearing in various school productions.
Following her high school graduation, Sorvino earned a degree in
East Asian Studies from Harvard University; she spent one year of
her education as an exchange student in Beijing, China, where she
became fluent in Mandarin.
Upon graduation,
Mira Sorvino still wanted to act, and she moved
to New York to pursue her career. Between small acting gigs, she
waited tables and worked as a production assistant until 1992, when
Weiss hired her as a third assistant director on the low-budget,
independent Amongst Friends. Mira Sorvino proved
so adept at her job that Weiss promoted her to associate producer
and eventually cast her as his leading lady. She appeared in two
short films, Susan Seidelman's The Dutch and the satirical The Second
Greatest Story Ever Told (both 1993), in which she played a contemporary
Virgin Mary. In 1994, Whit Stillman hired her to play a two-faced
party girl in Barcelona, while Robert Redford cast her as Rob Morrow's
wife in Quiz Show.
After winning her
Oscar for her performance in the following year's Mighty Aphrodite,
Sorvino started finding steady work in Hollywood. After a turn as
Matt Dillon's anorexic girlfriend in Beautiful Girls (1996) and
an Emmy nomination for her performance in the made-for-TV Norma
Jean and Marilyn (1996), Mira Sorvino went on her
first big-budget outing as a scientist trying to save New York from
giant cockroaches in Mimic. Unfortunately, the film was rejected
by critics and audiences alike. Sorvino's other major project that
year, the comedy Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, attained
a level of cult status thanks to its 1980s soundtrack and over-the-top
costumes. The following year, Mira Sorvino accompanied
two small, offbeat features--Paul Auster's Lulu on the Bridge and
Wonsuk Chin's Too Tired to Die (which cast her as Death)--with another
thickly budgeted action thriller, The Replacement Killers. Starring
opposite Hong Kong action star Chow Yun-Fat Sorvino was able to
put her past experiences in China and her fluency in Mandarin to
use; unfortunately, critics and audiences alike had little use for
the film.
In 1999, Mira
Sorvino decided to try her hand at romantic drama, starring
opposite Val Kilmer in At First Sight. The multi-handkerchief weepie
was something of a critical and commercial disappointment, although
Sorvino did win some positive attention for her performance as the
architect who helps restore her blind lover's sight. Later that
year, she won more acclaim for her starring role as John Leguizamo's
estranged wife in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, a story revolving around
the long, hot summer of 1977 when New York was terrorized by serial
killer David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz.
