Mira Sorvino Talks Reservation Road and Raising Kids
The Oscar-winning actress on her second baby and new film.
In the wrenching movie Reservation Road, a hit-and-run accident leaves a happy couple (Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly) bereft of a son. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, which is why Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino admits she was relieved when she found out she would not be playing the grieving mother, but rather the ex-wife of the cowardly hit-and-runner. Having just given birth to her second child, Johnny, she wasn’t quite ready to jump into the role of a mother in mourning.
Sorvino’s father is actor Paul Sorvino, but she was spared the life of a child actor when her parents refused to let her go that route. Instead, she went on to attend Harvard, where she majored in East Asian Studies. But the acting bug eventually bit and in 1996 she won an Oscar for her role as a prostitute in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, though many also know her fondly as Romy to Lisa Kudrow’s Michele in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.
The forty-year-old actress has two children with husband Christopher Backus – Johnny (one) and Mattea (almost three). Babble spoke with Sorvino about her killer mom instincts and the headache of navigating preschool philosophies. – Mina Hochberg
What appealed to you about this movie?
There was something really very trenchant about its understanding of human behavior and its evenhandedness about people. It wasn’t heroizing some and demonizing others.
Were there moments that particularly evoked a lot of emotion for you?
The greatest emotional scenes I connected to were the ones where the parents lost the child, because I had just had my second baby a few months before I read the script and loved my children so intensely that obviously the suggestion of losing a child is just unbelievably difficult. Which is why I was somewhat relieved when I met with Terry [George, the director] and he told me that the other three actors were already in place and the role I was being considered for was Ruth. That was kind of good for the place I am in my life – I was just too happy and fresh with the emotions of new babies to start putting myself in a place to lose them.
What did you think of Joaquin’s character and his obsession with eye-for-an-eye justice?
It’s not the right way, but it’s the human way. You always think, “I don’t know if I could ever kill someone,” but as soon as you have a child you’re like, “If someone came into my home and was threatening my children I would have no compunction with killing somebody who threatened them.” Maybe I couldn’t kill somebody to defend myself. Children? No questions asked. You come near their crib, you’re dead.
Did doing this film make you even more neurotic about leaving your kids unattended?
Yeah, well, I don’t leave them unattended. They’re always attended. I hired two sitters, one for each one. I don’t trust one person who’s not my husband or myself or my mother-in-law to watch them. I would never drop them off at day care and I would never put them in a situation where someone I didn’t know had control over them. It’s this terrible fear that somebody could hurt them, especially with all the horrible, horrible stuff out there about child abuse and molestation.
Elle Fanning started acting at age three. Did working with her make you think about how you would feel if your own kids wanted to act?
Elle really impressed me as a young lady. Whatever her parents are doing it’s the right thing for her because she seems happy and doesn’t seem to have lost her childhood to this business. I don’t think, though, that I will let my children do anything more than maybe a cameo on something that we’re doing, so that when we see the movie they could be like, “There’s me, Mommy!” Because children have to work like the adults. They have shorter time frames, but they’re performing a job and they have to meet the expectations of a whole movie studio. And that’s a lot to put on a little head.
When I was a kid you didn’t even think about the philosophy of the preschool. We just went to the local church preschool near my house.You play a music teacher. Do you plan to send your kids to music lessons?
They already go to this little [class] in the city. It starts off with puppets and then it goes to the kids all having individual maracas or xylophones. Then they have one major instrument per week that the teacher goes around and plays for each one of them. And then they start introducing concepts like forte and piano and notes and rests, but they weave it in so seamlessly with all this fun singing and dancing that the kids love it.
How has having kids affected your movie choices?
I find I’m much more selective about the quality of the work. I just want it to be important, good work. And I want it to be a short time frame because I hate being away from home at all. Even on a day level I get sad.
Have you maybe avoided roles that are intense or psychologically draining?
I don’t know that that has yet happened. I turned down opportunities that were huge time commitments because I just knew I wasn’t gonna be a happy person doing it. Even if it was a good career move or a good money situation, this time is never gonna come again with my kids. I don’t wanna rob them of me and I don’t wanna rob me of them because sooner than you know it they’ll be in school and they won’t even wanna be around me.
This is looking way down the road, but having gone to Harvard yourself, do you think you’ll encourage your kids to go to an academically rigorous university?
I think it’s gonna be up to them. I’m still trying to figure out which preschool philosophy I adhere to. There’s Montessori, there’s Waldorf, there’s academic, there’s Bank [Street] school, just in New York City alone. When I was a kid you didn’t even think about the philosophy of the preschool. We just went to the local church preschool near my house. I almost feel like throwing my hands up and walking away from that whole system. But it depends on what their particular proclivities are. I loved academia. I love studying and writing and reading. I was that geeky kid, so if they’re like that I would certainly encourage the path that I took because Harvard was probably the four most fun, exhilarating years of my life, only topped by the last four since I’ve had [my kids].
How delightful! I love the clever things these celbrimoms say…and how much I can learn by their example! For instance, Mira Sorvino says of her children:”I would never drop them off at day care and I would never put them in a
situation where someone I didn’t know had control over them. It’s this
terrible fear that somebody could hurt them, especially with all the
horrible, horrible stuff out there about child abuse and molestation.”As always — celebs…don’t pearls of wisdom just drop from their tongues? Aren’t they just so refreshingly down-to-earth and real? Quite right, Mira, daycare is the hallmark of bad momming and is a childcare CHOICE that good mothers choose to reject. Luckily we have celebrities to set us straight. And to show us what it means to be a truly perfect mother. Honestly. Bloody. Ridiculous.
I dunno, I think actors and actresses are pretty much like every one else. I thought it was realistic interview. And remember, Mira is 40 yo so she has some life experience under her belt.
oh crabmommy. lots of people like celebrities, and for me, at least, it’s refreshing to read an interview with a celebrity so grounded and seemingly intelligent. she’s not saying that daycare is bad, she’s saying that she is scared to leave her kids with someone she doesn’t know, which seems like a personal neurosis rather than a statement about what moms in general should do.
Maybe so, Staceysmom — it just rubbed me the wrong way on a crabby night. I also think celebs need to be careful what they say about childrearing because they DO live in a world of perfect options. I read you — I overreacted. but I am just SO OVER the fear-based parenting going on in our culture. Should anyone care to read more, I promise to handle the issue with more humor and goodwill over at Crabmommy @ Cookie magazine online. Stay tuned for Wednesday’s bit on flu meds and next week, Crabmommy crabs about infant swimming lessons.
I had the same reaction as crabmommy there. I thought the interview was good, she sounds like a great mom, but equating daycare with putting your kids in danger, iven if it’s a personal thing, is a bit rough. I’m sure we’d all LIKE to hire a sitter for each of our kids, but it’s not practical for most of us. Actually, scratch that- I don’t want my kids to grow up scared to take risks. It’s a tough balance for any parent, I guess.
Good thing Mira doesn’t have a real job, or she would have to drop the kids off at daycare, like all the rest of the crappy moms out here in the actual, not movie-star world.
Right on, crabmommy and leebs. What we don’t need is yet another mom (celebrity or no) touting the so-called “horrors” of day care so that she can feel better about her own child care choice. I can afford to pay a nanny, but decided that day care would provide a safer, more stimulating and happier environment for my child. She made a different decision. But neither of us should have to defend ourselves against the other. If I want to stoop to her level, I’ll just say congratulations to her if she can find and afford not one, but two, trust worthy care takers who don’t leave the kids in the stroller for hours per day while they chat on their cell phone, shop and watch soaps. Check your kids for stroller sores when you get home tonight.
I totally agree w/crabmommy, leebs, and QsMom. My child has been in daycare since she was 3 mos. old (I’m a prof, and she was born at the beginning of summer–when fall rolled around, she started daycare) and it’s a choice my husband and I made after agonizing over it for months. Grandparents are still working, and they live more than an hour away. My job is the one with the better salary and benefits. My husband could probably stay home if we stripped down to the bare minimum (and gave up on our dream of buying our own home), but we need his income too. We can’t afford a nanny. We didn’t want a babysitter, because I don’t want the scenario described by QsMom; that, plus what do we do when the babysitter is sick or flakes out? We were left with one option: daycare. We chose one that is more like a preschool –structured time for breakfast, lunch, naps, and snacks, but lots of room for choice play etc. At this point I’m convinced that it was the best choice–she has good social skills and she enjoys going to “school” at 3 1/2. Having another rich celebrimom go on with that old saw about giving control of your kids over to someone you don’t know is just plain irritating, and unless she’s planning to have her kids tutored at home until they’re 18, they’re going to be out of her control sooner than she thinks…
Just to throw a tad more crabbiness out there…I must say I find it quite annoying to have to read celebrity profiles here at Babble. I get that they need celeb profiles for their numbers (as do we at Cookie magazine where I blog) but I would love for there to come a day when celebs and mommymedia don’t entertwine. Yes, I read the Mira piece (it was staring me in the face, so like a car accident I looked) but overall I have little in the way of tolerance for moms who “enjoy reading about celebrities.” I guess there’s a place for fantasy and dreaming in our culture, but as moms, we need to hear real stories by real people, not hear celebrities gushing about the wonder that is motherhood when-you-have-fifty-servants-and-charter-planes…Yes, I’m crabby. That’s why they call me Crabmommy, so sue me for saying we need to laugh, cry, and commiserate as real mothers together on this planet — but NOT have to read about those moms who live in a celebri-bubble and hence find motherhood just peachy-perfect. All it does is make us either feel guilty about ourselves and/or envious of others. How is that helpful or entertaining?OK, I’ve said more than my fair share in this discussion…But if you like a little crabbiness, let me shamefully plug one more time: http://www.cookiemag.com/magazine/blogs/crabmommyI'm presently hoarding my kiddie cold meds and trying not to get too drunk! Cheers!