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Mira Sorvino
Birth name	Mira Katherine Sorvino
Born	September 28, 1967 (age 39) Tenafly, New Jersey, USA
Spouse(s)	Christopher Backus (2004 - present)
Notable roles	Linda in Mighty Aphrodite Romy in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actress 1995 Mighty Aphrodite

Mira Katherine Sorvino (born September 28, 1967 in Tenafly, New Jersey) is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Selected filmography 3 Interviews 4 External links

She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, a drama therapist for Alzheimer's patients, and Italian American character actor Paul Sorvino; she has two siblings, Michael, and Amanda, a playwright.

Her father did not want his children to become actors; at a young age, however, Sorvino wrote and acted in backyard plays with childhood friend Hope Davis, in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood High School, and later at Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude in East Asian Studies. Her thesis was on anti-African sentiment in China. While at Harvard, she helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's premier co-ed a cappella groups.

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 [1] [2] opened doors for her.

After small but showy roles in Robert Redford's Quiz Show and Whit Stillman's Barcelona, her portrayal of a squeaky-voiced, foul-mouthed prostitute in Woody Allen's 1995 film Mighty Aphrodite won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Other credits include Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (opposite Lisa Kudrow) and At First Sight with Val Kilmer. In recent years, she has appeared 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.

Sorvino dated director Quentin Tarantino for several years and was in a relationship with French actor Olivier Martinez.

She met actor Christopher Backus at a friend's charades party in August 2003: "He walked into the kitchen looking for silverware. We saw each other and something made us want to talk to each other more". She told People. They were engaged within a month. On June 11, 2004, they married in a private civil ceremony at a Santa Barbara, California courthouse, then later had a hilltop ceremony in Capri, Italy. Their daughter, Mattea Angel, was born on November 4, 2004 and their son, Johnny Christopher King, was born on May 29, 2006.

Sorvino is affiliated with Amnesty International, and has been among the many Hollywood celebrities calling for United Nations action in Darfur.

She spent a year of study in Beijing while attending Harvard. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and also speaks French.

In October of 2006, Sorvino was successfully 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. Sorvino told New York magazine, “My landlords are selling the building, and they want the units cleared so they can turn it into a luxury rental, even though it’s a one-bedroom. I mean, it’s 600 square feet! No great digs, but I loved it and now it’s probably going to go for $4,000 a month ... I’m a little bitter! Can you tell?”

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1994	Barcelona	Marta Ferrer
1995	Mighty Aphrodite	Linda Ash
1996	Norma Jean & Marilyn	Marilyn Monroe
1996	Beautiful Girls	Sharon Cassidy
1997	Romy and Michele's High School Reunion	Romy White
1997	Mimic	Dr. Susan Tyler
1998	The Replacement Killers	Meg Coburn
1998	Lulu on the Bridge	Celia Burns
1999	At First Sight	Amy Benic
1999	Summer of Sam	Dionna
2000	The Great Gatsby	Daisy
2002	Wise Girls	Meg Kennedy
2002	The Triumph of Love	The Princess/Phocion/Aspasie
2004	The Final Cut	Delila
2005	Human Trafficking	Kate Morozov

Preceded by Dianne Wiest for Bullets Over Broadway

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1995 for Mighty Aphrodite

Succeeded by Juliette Binoche for The English Patient

• interview, 10/24/05, The Honolulu Advertiser
• interview, 10/02, Interview Magazine
• interview, 4/02, Filmcritic.com
• interview, 1/16/99, People Online
• interview, 10/95, MovieMaker Magazine

• Mira Sorvino at the Internet Movie Database
• Mira Sorvino at the Notable Names Database
• Mira Sorvino at TV.com