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Mira Sorvino

Mira Sorvino

Birthday: 1967-09-28 | Place of Birth: Tenafly, New Jersey, USA

Mira Katherine Sorvino was born on September 28, 1967 in Manhattan. She is the daughter of Lorraine Davis, an actress turned drama therapist, and veteran character actor Paul Sorvino. Her father's family were Italian immigrants. The young Sorvino was intelligent, an avid reader and an exceptional scholar. Her father discouraged her from becoming an actor, as he knew how the industry often chews up young stars. She attended Harvard, majoring in Chinese, graduating magna cum laude in 1989, largely on the strength of her thesis, a Hoopes Prize-winning thesis on racial conflict in China, written and researched during the year spent in Beijing, which helped her fluency in Mandarin Chinese. However, she showed interest in a career in acting from an early age, and moved to New York City to try her hand in the City's film industry, waitressing, auditioning and working at the Tribeca production company of Robert De Niro. She succeeded in getting a little television work in the early 1990s, but got her first film job in the independent gangster movie Amongst Friends (1993), on which she worked her way up the ladder behind the camera to eventually associate-produce the film, and, more importantly, was eventually cast as the female lead. The indie production was well-received, and Sorvino's performance attracted enough buzz to get her cast in two more movies, one a more prominent indie, Barcelona (1994), the other her first Hollywood feature, Quiz Show (1994), and her skillful performances brought her yet more attention. An exceptionally poised and articulate young woman, she may have seemed inappropriate to play a crazy hooker, but Woody Allen took the chance, and her magnificent performance as the female lead in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995) proved her range as a performer and earned her an Oscar (at the tender age of 29) for Best Supporting Actress. Since winning the Oscar, Sorvino has continued to take a wide range of roles, including another stretch as Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), co-starring with another very intelligent and skilled young actress, Ashley Judd. Forays into action and horror, such as Mimic (1997) and The Replacement Killers (1998) show that Sorvino is not above being playful in the film roles she chooses. However, what forever cemented her role in popular culture was her performance as charmingly silly California beach girl Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), in which she and co-star Lisa Kudrow utter one hilarious absurdity after another. Mira Sorvino married Christopher Backus on June 11, 2004, and the couple have four children. - IMDb Mini Biography

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2023
Sound of Freedom

as    Katherine Ballard

2022
After Ever Happy

as    Carol Young

2021
The Girl Who Believes in Miracles

as    Bonnie Hopkins

2021
After We Fell

as    Carol Young

2021
Hero Mode

as    Kate Mayfield

2021
Crime Story

as    Nick

2021
East of the Mountains

as    Renee Givens

2021
The Perfect Victim

as    Self (archive footage)

2020
Most Guys Are Losers

as    Amy Berzins

2020
The Expecting

as    Dr. Green

2020
Butter

as    Marian

2019
Stuber

as    Angie McHenry

2019
Badland

as    Sarah Cooke

2018
Look Away

as    Amy Brennan

2018
No One Would Tell

as    Elizabeth Hanover

2018
Waterlily Jaguar

as    Helen

2018
Doe

as    The Executive

2017
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain

as    Susan Lemarqe

2016
Mothers and Daughters

as    Georgina Scott

2016
Exposed

as    Janine Cullen

2016
A Christmas to Remember

as    Jennifer Wade

2015
Quitters

as    May Rayman

2015
Chloe and Theo

as    Monica

2015
Do You Believe?

as    Samantha

2014
Intruders

as    Amy Whelan

2014
Frozen in Time

as    Carol (voice)

2014
Perfect Sisters

as    Linda / Perfect Mom

2013
Space Warriors

as    Sally Hawkins