Mira Sorvino: The Mira Has Two Faces

Now that the shopping is done, we head to breakfast at a packed cafe. Once we've settled in, I can't help but notice a twentysomething man at a nearby table is staring at Sorvino. "You know who that is?" he tells his friend. "She got the Oscar for that Woody Allen thing." I look at Sorvino to see if she's listening, but I can't tell--she's reading her menu. "Oh, yeah, Mighty Aphrodite, she was great," says the friend, "but what happened after that?" The twentysomething guy then acts like a one-man film encyclopedia, going over all her movies, mentioning how she dated Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino, then finishing with, "I think she went back and got her degree at Yale." The self-appointed film maestro narrates this with such mock-authority, he's practically begging for someone to deck him. As for Sorvino, I almost expect her to lean over and correct him. Either she hasn't heard the boor or else she has and just lets it roll off her back. She smiles as enigmatically as Mona Lisa.

Sorvino has not made terrible film choices, just idiosyncratic ones. Was immaturity to blame for it? "When one is young, one doesn't have a game plan," says Sorvino. "I didn't think about the larger picture at the time, which was a mistake. And one pays for mistakes. But I had fun doing those movies and gained something from them. What I got from Mimic was a great friendship with Guillermo Del Toro. I was just with him last night and he's a wonderful guy. He has zeal for everything."

Even if she doesn't get first crack at plum opportunities, Sorvino sounds entirely convincing when she says she's happier today. "When I was a more visible presence on magazine covers, I was probably more unhappy. It turns out that I'm more interested in acting than in being 'a movie star,' which is great because I didn't become a big movie star. But see, America thinks that fame is the be all and end all. Watching a particular actor or singer negotiate the hurdles in their careers is almost like watching an athletic event. People tend to think your entire self-worth should be wrapped up in what your Hollywood 'score' is at any given moment. To them, it's a spectator sport."

Clearly, Sorvino has gained wisdom through some painful experiences. "You have to develop a life outside of your work," she continues. "When you start a career, the momentum required to get it off the ground demands your whole focus. You become single-minded. But unless you have more than that, your life is a shell. No amount of successful work will ever make you a happy person."

Did living in France help her learn that? "It affected my point of view. There's a real hatred of America in certain places in Europe and we won't go into the reasons. But I get super patriotic when someone says something against America."

Speaking of hatred, is it true that women give her angry looks because she's with Martinez, as she was quoted saying in a magazine article? "I think that was actually sort of a misquote," she says. "I don't feel that people hate me because of Olivier. I think the more people that like my boyfriend, that find him attractive, that's great. I'm neither defensive nor possessive. Our relationship is good."

So is her career. She talks animatedly about her upcoming movies. Gods and Generals is a sprawling epic about General "Stonewall" Jackson that is a prequel to the 1993 hit Gettysburg. "It's not a big part," she says of playing the wife of legendary Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain, "but it's nice being part of a sweeping canvas." Then there's the drama Wise Girls, which received a standing ovation at Sundance. She's also in Between Strangers, which was written and directed by Edoardo Ponti, son of screen legend Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti. Sorvino's costars include Loren, Gerard Depardieu and Deborah Kara Unger. "It has a European sensibility," she says, "and, again, I'm in really wonderful company."

Sorvino is most proud of the fact-based concentration camp drama The Grey Zone, set among the Sonderkommando, Jews forced to work in the crematoria of Auschwitz. The movie was written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson, perhaps best known for his acting in 0 Brother, Where Art Thou? and Minority Report. "This is a powerful portrait of a very black period of human behavior," she says. "My character is based on a woman prisoner who smuggled gunpowder to Jewish men who worked in the crematoria and were planning a revolt. To prepare for the movie, Tim sent us a lot of historical, firsthand accounts by concentration camp survivors and there were times I couldn't read it."

This fall, Sorvino will be starring in and producing the indie The Beauty of Jane. "It's very dark, but romantic and elevated-- like old Hollywood movies. Not to sound preachy, but something that's missing in life, and often in movies, is goodness. Goodness has lost its cool. It's not a valued attribute anymore to live a decent life like my grandparents, who believed in kindness. I know it sounds naive, but it's taken me a long time to learn that Hollywood is based on dollars and cents, rather than the dream of it. The 'indies' are still living that dream, though."

Sorvino seems to have grown up a lot and her career is much the better for it, but she says she still has more to learn. "My father said to me the other day, 'Mira, you have to stop looking at the world from the perspective that you imagined it as a child. You have to look at it as it is.' It's pretty crazy that an adult needs that advice, but it is true that I have a romantic vision. You don't have to give up your own idealism, but you have to see the world just as it is."

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