Mira Sorvino
| Mira Sorvino | |
|---|---|
 Sorvino at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival |
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| Born | Mira Katherine Sorvino September 28, 1967 Tenafly, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Spouse | Christopher Backus (2004–present; 3 children) |
Mira Katherine Sorvino (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite (1995) and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
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[edit] Early life
Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey. Her mother, Lorraine Ruth Davis, is a drama therapist for Alzheimer's disease patients and a former actress, and her father, Paul Sorvino, is a character actor and director.[1][2] She has two siblings, Michael and Amanda. Sorvino is of Italian descent on her father's side.
At a young age, Sorvino wrote and acted in backyard plays with her childhood friend Hope Davis, in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood School, and at Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude in East Asian Studies. She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's co-ed a cappella groups.[citation needed] Her solo piece was Yazoo's "Only You".[citation needed]
[edit] Career
Sorvino spent the next three years in New York City, trying to make a name for herself as an actress.[citation needed] 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[3][4] opened doors for her.[citation needed]
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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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] In 2005, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Lifetime film Human Trafficking.[citation needed]
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.[5]
More recently, she starred in Attack on Leningrad (2009), Multiple Sarcasms (2010) alongside Timothy Hutton and Stockard Channing, and Nancy Savoca's Union Square (release date, early 2011), with Patti Lupone and Tammy Blanchard.[citation needed]
She was considered for the role of video game heroine Jill Valentine in 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse' (2004) before the role was played by British actress Sienna Guillory.[citation needed]
In 2011, the feature film Union Square, co-written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award Winner, Nancy Savoca, is being premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In it, Mira co-stars with Patti Lupone, Tammy Blanchard, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli and Daphne Rubin-Vega.[6]
[edit] 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. Their daughter, Mattea Angel, was born on November 3, 2004[7] and their son, Johnny Christopher King, was born on May 29, 2006.[8] On June 22, 2009, Sorvino gave birth to a boy named Holden Paul Terry Backus, after a complicated pregnancy.[9]
She is affiliated with Amnesty International, and has been among the many Hollywood celebrities calling for United Nations action in Darfur.[citation needed]
In October 2006, she was evicted from her rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan near Central Park when her landlord claimed that it was not her primary residence.[citation needed]
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."[10]
[edit] Filmography
[edit] References
- ^ "Mira Sorvino Biography (1967?-)". filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/8/Mira-Sorvino.html. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
- ^ Maria Laurino (August 28, 1994). "FILM; The Many Screen Ethnicities of Mira Sorvino". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E6DE1239F93BA1575BC0A962958260.
- ^ James Berardinelli (1993). "Review: Amongst Friends". http://www.reelviews.net/movies/a/amongst.html.
- ^ Hal Hinson (August 13, 1993). "Amongst Friends". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/amongstfriendsrhinson_a0a841.htm.
- ^ Isabella Vosmikova (2008-01-24). "TV Addict Interview: Mira Sorvino Guest Stars on HOUSE". http://thetvaddict.com/2008/01/24/tv-addict-interview-mira-sorvino-guest-stars-on-house/.
- ^ Union Square at Tiff.net
- ^ Mira Sorvino Gives Birth to a Girl - Pregnancy, Mira Sorvino : People.com
- ^ "Mira Sorvino Has a Boy", Alison Gee, May 30, 2006, People
- ^ "Mira Sorvino Welcomes Son Holden Paul Terry". July 13, 2009. http://celebritybabies.people.com/2009/07/13/mira-sorvino-welcomes-son-holden-paul-terry/. Retrieved July 15, 2011.
- ^ Jerrold Meinwald; et al. (March 17, 1998). "Mirasorvone: A masked 20-ketopregnane from the defensive secretion of a diving beetle (Thermonectus marmoratus)". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences) 95 (6): 2733–2737. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.6.2733. OCLC 1607201. PMC 19637. PMID 9501158. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/6/2733.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mira Sorvino |
- Mira Sorvino at the Internet Movie Database
- interview, 10/24/05 at The Honolulu Advertiser
- interview, 1/16/99, People Online
- interview, 10/95 at MovieMaker Magazine
- 1967 births
- Actors from New Jersey
- American film actors
- American people of Italian descent
- American television actors
- Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- Harvard University alumni
- Living people
- People from Tenafly, New Jersey
- 20th-century actors
- 21st-century actors
