Born: 28-Sep-1967
Birthplace: Tenafly, NJ

Gender: Female
Religion: Atheist [1]
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Mighty Aphrodite

As a young girl, Mira Sorvino read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, and became fascinated with China. She started hanging out in Chinatown, and soon picked up the Mandarin language from Chinese-American girlfriends. She was a straight-A student in high school, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in East Asian Studies. Her thesis was on the Nanjing Anti-African protests. She now speaks Mandarin fluently, and though Chow Yun-Fat's native language is Cantonese, they were able to chat at length in Mandarin on the set of The Replacement Killers.

Her father, noted character actor Paul Sorvino, discouraged Mira from entering acting. She worked as a waitress and gave Mandarin lessons for several years, while auditioning for stage, TV, and movie parts, and usually being rejected. She briefly appeared on the soap opera Guiding Light and had small roles in several minor movies, until 1995 when she played a hooker and porn star in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, and won an Oscar. Since then, though, with only the rarest exceptions, she has appeared in artsy films, eschewing offers of potential big-budget blockbusters. Her more memorable films include Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, John Woo's The Replacement Killers, and Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. She also battled killer cockroaches in Mimic.

Father: Paul Sorvino (actor)
Mother: Lorraine Sorvino (therapist, div.)
Mother: Vanessa Arico (stepmother, m. Paul Sorvino 1991, div. 1996)
Brother: Michael Sorvino (occasionally an actor)
Sister: Amanda Sorvino (runs animal resuce mission, b. 1971)
Boyfriend: Quentin Tarantino (film director, dated 1996-98)
Boyfriend: Olivier Martinez (French actor, b. 1966, dated 1999-2002)
Husband: Christopher Backus (waiter-actor, b. 30-Oct-1981, m. 11-Jun-2004)
Daughter: Mattea Angel Backus (b. 3-Nov-2004 with Backus)
Son: Johnny Christopher King Backus (b. 29-May-2006 with Backus)

    High School: Dwight Englewood High School, Englewood, NJ (1986)
    University: BA East Asian Studies, Harvard University (1990)

    Oscar for Best Supporting Actress 1996 for Mighty Aphrodite
    Golden Globe 1996 for Mighty Aphrodite
    Italian Ancestry
    Risk Factors: Smoking

    TELEVISION
    The Guiding Light Julie Camalletti (1991)
    Swans Crossing Sophia Decastro (1992)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Reservation Road (13-Sep-2007)
    Covert One: The Hades Factor (9-Apr-2006)
    Human Trafficking (24-Oct-2005)
    The Final Cut (11-Feb-2004)
    Gods and Generals (10-Feb-2003)
    Between Strangers (30-Aug-2002)
    Angel of Death (24-Apr-2002)
    Wisegirls (13-Jan-2002)
    The Grey Zone (13-Sep-2001)
    The Triumph of Love (6-Sep-2001)
    The Great Gatsby (14-Jan-2001)
    Welcome to Hollywood (27-Oct-2000) Herself
    Bamboozled (18-Sep-2000) Herself
    Famous (14-May-2000) Herself
    Summer of Sam (20-May-1999)
    At First Sight (12-Jan-1999)
    Free Money (3-Dec-1998)
    Lulu on the Bridge (14-Aug-1998)
    Too Tired to Die (20-Jan-1998)
    The Replacement Killers (12-Jan-1998)
    Mimic (22-Aug-1997)
    Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (25-Apr-1997)
    Norma Jean & Marilyn (18-May-1996)
    Sweet Nothing (27-Mar-1996)
    Beautiful Girls (9-Feb-1996)
    Blue in the Face (15-Sep-1995)
    Mighty Aphrodite (13-Sep-1995)
    The Buccaneers (5-Feb-1995)
    Quiz Show (14-Sep-1994)
    Parallel Lives (14-Aug-1994)
    Barcelona (Jun-1994)
    Amongst Friends (23-Jul-1993)

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