Mira Sorvino
The Oscar-winning actress on her second baby and new film.
by Mina Hochberg
October 23, 2007
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 wasMaybe I couldn't kill somebody to defend myself. Children? No questions asked. You come near their crib, you're dead. 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.
©2007 Mina Hochberg and Nerve Media
About the Author
|
|
Related Articles
|
|
Mina Hochberg is a movie critic at amNewYork. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. |
|
|
-
by Sarah Hepola
On why his son won't eat meat or be a child actor.
-
by Aaron Burgess
The rock icon and dad on his newest baby: Kidzapalooza.
-
by Justin Clark
"I don't have a mental manual of how I'm raising my kids."
|
