Actors - Mira Sorvino

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	Actors - Mira Sorvino

Mira Katherine Sorvino (born September 28, 1967) is an Oscar-winning American actress.

Early life

Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey to Lorraine Davis (a drama therapist for Alzheimer's patients) and veteran Italian American actor Paul Sorvino; she has two siblings, Amanda and Michael. She was raised in New Jersey and dedicated most of her childhood to academic studies, rather than preparing for an acting career, as her father did not want his three children to become actors at a young age. However, Sorvino did appear in theater productions while in 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.

Career

After graduating from college, Sorvino spent three years in New York, trying to make a name for herself as an actress. She worked at several jobs, including as a production assistant in a film company. When the 1993 film Amongst Friends entered pre-production, she was hired as third assistant director, before being promoted to casting director and to assistant producer, and was finally offered the lead role in the movie. Reviews of this role, her first film performance, were positive , which opened her doors for her following parts.

The breakthrough role in Sorvino's early career was her portrayal of a squeaky-voiced, foul-mouthed prostitute in Woody Allen's 1995 film Mighty Aphrodite
, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Since then, she has had co-leading and supporting roles, some of them becoming box-office hits, such as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
(opposite Lisa Kudrow) and At First Sight
with Val Kilmer.

In recent years, Sorvino has appeared in lower budget and independent films, including The Grey Zone
in 2002. In 2005, she played an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the gritty Lifetime network film Human Trafficking; she received a Golden Globe nomination for the role.

Private life

Sorvino dated Quentin Tarantino for several years and was more recently in a relationship with French actor Olivier Martinez. On June 11, 2004, she married Christopher Backus, an actor, in a private ceremony; the marriage did not become public knowledge for more than two weeks. The couple met when Backus took Sorvino's order at the restaurant where he was working as a waiter. Sorvino gave birth to a daughter, Mattea Angel Backus, on November 4, 2004. The couple are currently expecting their second child, due in the summer of 2006.

Sorvino is a political activist affiliated with Amnesty International. She is often cited as a fluent Mandarin Chinese speaker, and has spent eight months abroad in China. She also speaks French.

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