Mira Sorvino

I thought she was blackmailed by Weinstein.

Blackballed. Fucking autocorrect on this phone.

R1, exactly.

She's constantly busy. Lately, it seems she's been getting better work but it may have come too late.

She was given a number of opportunities and didn’t shine. The Weinstein story is an example of… whatever helps you sleep at night.

No talent. Watch Wisegirls.

She wouldn't sleep with Weinstein and he bad-mouthed her to every director he could. Wasn't it Peter Jackson who came clean about that during MeToo? I'm surprised you missed it, OP.

She's a neocon I think. Wants to blow up Syria probably.

Harvey.

She's fantastic in Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion.

She has great legs and excellent taste in men. She doesn't date or marry warthogs.

She was ridiculously bad in whatever Woody Allen movie she won the Oscar for.

The academy was basically awarding her father so they’d get a good shot of him blubbering during the telecast.

Peter Jackson said Weinstein said she couldn't have the Liv Tyler role in The Lord of the Rings films. She wasn't cast but just on a list of possibilities but Weinstein vetoed her.

She did herself no favors though. She had a big ego. Got offended at the Golden Globes and told off some director who didn't know who she was. Proclaimed that she was an Oscar winner and he should know her! (Oliver Stone maybe? I forget.)

She wanted to be the third Sally in Cabaret after jennnifer Jason Leigh and Natasha Richardson but even back then they were worried she'd be too much "trouble." Maybe Weinstein started all those rumors though. Hard to say.

She was sort of pedantic. Always bragging about her Harvard degree and her time in China. Thought she was the new Meryl doing accents everywhere (Romy, Mighty Aphrodite.)

Joan Allen (Nixon) should have got that Oscar she won. Her studio screwed up though. Oliver Stone didn't want screeners sent out (that was kind of a new thing back then.) He wanted people to see it in a theater.

They didn't I guess especially in the UK where it wasn't even playing or being screened for members. Allen lost the whole British vote.

She is now doing Christmas movies and terrible acting

Will and Grace ruined the careers of many guests

She was wonderfully comedic in The Might Aphrodite and richly deserved the best supporting actress Oscar. She made some odd choices after that (Romy and Michelle was a delight, but Mimic was insane), but I wonder how much was Harvey's fault.

Funny looking but not funny except in Romy and Michelle. Also box office poison

"Peter Jackson said Weinstein said she couldn't have the Liv Tyler role in The Lord of the Rings films. "

Well no, Weinstein actually "warned" Jackson that she was a horrible pain in the ass, and I did hear rumors about her being difficult to work with circa the late 1990s. For Weinstein to say that was a good way to shaft someone's career, much more effective than saying "Don't hire her because she wouldn't fuck me".

So she's still a working actor, she's been married to the same guy forever, she has four kids, and she does some political stuff because she wants to. Her life is in better shape than Weinstein's.

R16, she was hilarious in that episode, one of the best in the entire series IMO.

Harvey Weinstein OP. He ruined her.

While I have no doubt that Weinstein was and still is a pig, I wonder how many people are now getting a pass and trying to rehabilitate their careers by crying "weinstein" to excuse their past behavior.

Even Oscar nominations open doors. But, not awards make up for being an utter pain in the ass - ask Mo'nique.

[quote]She was wonderfully comedic in The Might Aphrodite and richly deserved the best supporting actress Oscar. She made some odd choices after that

But now I wonder if she made bad/odd choices or if she was blackballed and had limited options.

Her actor husband is 14 years younger than her. They met when she was 36 and he was 22 and got married a year later.

Interesting.

r16 And that was the worst episode of the series.

She plays Monica Lewinsky's mother in that mini-series airing now.

I am sure Harvey sabotaged her but would she ever have become a big star? She is kind of bland

She was excellent in Norma Jean and Marilyn. Hers is one of the better portrayals of La Monroe.

remember when she dated Quentin Tarantino? He's her Oscar date. Gurl was ambitious I guess and had a strong stomach. Yuck!!!!

Tarantino’s like a fucking goblin.

She went to Harvard but never came across as especially intelligent or interesting. Also not very pretty, kind of a mix between Kristen Johnston and Drew Barrymore.

^ must be Lisa Kudrow. Mira was hot. Kristen Johnston could join Sarah Jessica Parker at The Kentucky Derby.

[quote] Kristen Johnston could join Sarah Jessica Parker at The Kentucky Derby.

You just don't understand sophisticated art

She is a poor man’s Ashley Judd. Ashley Judd is a poor man’s cunty neighbor who buys wine at Kroger because it’s classier than buying it a Wal Mart

I think she should have stuck with brown hair. The blonde hair looks unnatural on her and then she also becomes another blonde actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Even Julia Roberts & Angelina Jolie don't look great with blonde hair. Some women just look better with dark hair.

I’m enjoying her work as Monica Lewinsky’s mom in Impeachment. Always a lot of empathy in her performances (she’s also aging really well).

I hated working with that cunt.

When I first got to DL, there were posts about MS being hugh-maintenance, then when the Weinstein scandal broke some years later, it mad me wonder who'd made those posts and why. Because her career did just disappear despite a number good performances.

She needed a mira(cle) and didn't get it.

Brilliant as Romy

I still ask for the " Business Woman's Special" every time I eat out.

Lisa Kudrow did Romy and Michelle in some play or skit prior to the film.

Who was the other woman? It wasn't Mira. She must have been mad she didn't get to be in the film.

I've always loved her, especially in Mighty Aphrodite and, although I really can't say anything on her competition, I was happy she won the award for it. Her winning was controversial, but she really nailed the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold element and I thought her comedy and dramatic scenes were well played, especially the scene where she finally confides that she did have a son she gave up for adoption. And of course Romy and Michelle was a staple of my childhood that is equally beloved. Another lesser-known film I really liked her in was the remake of The Great Gatsby. I don't believe critics were fond of her performance, but she portrayed the character very closely to how I envisioned her in the book which I always appreciated. I am saddened that she doesn't have the same presence she once did in Hollywood, but I appreciate the short time she was there.

Given Hollywood's penchant for sequels, I'm surprised they never did a Romy and Michele sequel.

All I can imagine is that either Kudrow or Sorvino refused to work againwith the other, as even if the director was hated by one of them, the studio would have just replaced him for someone else.

Given the number of times Sorvino has done interviews stating she wants to do one, I'm wondering whether it's Kudrow who refused.

Here’s the vintage gossip (circa 2004!!!):

“ Sorvino, Mira. Reportedly difficult to work with. Refused to act alongside Ellen DeGeneres because she's afraid of somehow being linked with Ellen in the public's eye. Linked with Kevin Costner, Willem Dafoe, Val Kilmer, John Leguizamo, & Quentin Tarantino.”

I also recall a story about her being in a bar with a handsome actor (was it Olivier Martinez?) who was being extremely mean to her and she just sat there and tolerated it like a doormat.

FINALLY. An appropriate "why wasn't this person bigger" thread. Knew you'd hit one eventually OP. I do know within 6 or 7 years of winning the oscar she couldn't get hired. No huge reason just too big to take any gig that was out there and not desirable enough to audiences or directors to get worthy roles.

Sally Kirkland got an Oscar nom and less than 10 years later was doing direct to cinemax soft core porn. She wanted to work. Mira Sorvino wasn't interested in taking anything that was out there. Someone mentioned Chicago on broadway for her--thats what agents and managers do when the talent is cold and they dont want to take work work and buy some time....

I l liked her in The Buccaneers (1995).

She dated Tarantino and was a major bitch on wheels is what really happened. When they broke up, Quentin more than likely had more to do with her getting blackballed than Weinstein and, well, who wants to work with a bitch?

[quote] well, who wants to work with a bitch?

We hear ya man

You idiots, the "hard to work with" came from Weinstein because she wouldn't fuck him. He stalled her career, fact. He had the power.

She absolutely stole the mini-series "Hollywood" playing Rob Reiner's mistress. She blew Lupone and Holland Taylor right off the screen in this scene. And her Oscar win wasn't controversial, it was just rare, when a comedic performance won. Oscar enjoys shitting on comedic performances. But this was a Miramax film and Harvey wanted payment.

"You idiots, the "hard to work with" came from Weinstein because she wouldn't fuck him. He stalled her career, fact. He had the power."

We don't really know how much of the "difficult" rep was for real and how much from Weinstein (or Tarantino). It's proven that Weinstein was actively costing her roles by telling film directors she was, but did he make it up completely, or exaggerate the real deal?

Has anyone dealt with her in person, or heard reliable second-hand stories?

Her films??

Where did she go to college?

Harvard. Harvard degree in Chinese, which can't have been an easy subject.

She was the subject of an infamous celebrity takedown cover story in GQ 1996, written by an old Harvard classmate. The article isn't online, but it's often cited as a classic.

Diane Wiest had won the year before for a Woody Allen film and Judy Davis almost won 2 years prior. Allen films were hot for actresses back then.

Kate Winslet won SAG for Sense and Sensibility but it was only the second year for SAG so I don't know if it was that influential back then. Sorvino won the Globe and some critics awards so it wasn't a fluke. I think she was kind of the favorite going in.

Her Weinstein 'attack" was one of his milder ones. I don't know if he would have had such a vengence against her. Her decline was probably due to a lot of things. Weinstein, her attitude, becoming known for comedies but losing all the really good romcoms to Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock.

Same thing happened to Marisa Tomei. The Oscar gave her so much press and made her a leading lady but not high enough in the pecking order to get the really good parts. She was sort of considered a fluke too until she reinvented herself in strong supporting roles and got two more nominations. Sorvino never did that.

I heard some gossip that her father really wanted to beat the everloving shit out of Weinstein.

I was watching "Impeachment" and thinking about Mira just last night. She is a really good actress. There's something about her look, though – she's attractive in a normal way but doesn't really have one of those faces the camera loves. Few of us do, of course.

Can someone post the article at R55? Sounds interesting but it's behind a paywall.

I heard stories she was badly behaved on set... diva. A story about her phone going off during a take because she'd put it in a pocket in her costume.

Don't know if it's true or not but if so you gotta be something pretty special to slow down production.

She's actually still working but low key. She's also very involved in trying to stop human trafficking. I think she really just works when she wants and has other interests that take priority first. Not everyone wants to be in Hollywood bullshit machine.

I remember when she made a movie for Lifetime called Human Trafficking in 2005, less than a decade after winning the Oscar, and I wondered how in the hell she went from one extreme to the other. So I absolutely believe it was Weinstein's influence. We know now that he used exactly that as a threat: fuck me or I will end your career. We know how he operated, through telling people not to hire people because of alleged "difficulty," etc. And we know how networked he was with e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. And we know his threats were not empty threats. It's interesting that some people here persist in believing the 'difficult' rumors despite all we know.

I do find it a little ironic that her Oscar-winning role was from working for Woody Allen of all people.

And regarding her appearance, in the Will & Grace clip, I was surprised how much she reminds me of Alanis Morissette with a less elongated face. I agree that the yellow-blonde hair doesn't help.

Hope this works R59

She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Human Trafficking, R27, so it wasn’t really one of *those* Lifetime movies.

But, yeah, check her IMDb; she’s in 6 or 7 indies a year, plus lots of TV. She also has 4 kids to support.

Archive version of the 1996 GQ profile of Mira mentioned upthread:

[quote] This profile of the Oscar-winning actress by writer Andrew Corsello inspired columnist Ross Douthat to write an Op-Ed article for The New York Times in 2010 expressing sympathy for Sorvino and calling the GQ article a case study "in the power of journalists to celebrate or destroy." Corsello, who brought into the article a previous encounter he had had with Sorvino at Harvard, portrayed her as intellectually pretentious and eccentric. And her meta-commentary on the sexual politics of male-reporter, female-starlet magazine profiles exhausted him. After the article was published, followed not long after by an Esquire profile of Kevin Spacey that explored the actor's sexual orientation, Variety published a piece asking if magazine editors and writers were acting maliciously - a topic no doubt being discussed among Teller's team.

That doesn't incriminate Sorvino for being 'difficult' at all. It's a condemnation of an interviewer who represented her negatively because he thought she was pretentious and weird in college, which has nothing to do with her professionalism as an actor.

I remember many years ago reading some quote from Quentin Tarantino, who had dated her, that he’d never known anyone as book smart and street dumb, something like that.

That's not uncommon R67. Lots of book smart people lack basic ommon sense. It's a trade off.

" It's interesting that some people here persist in believing the 'difficult' rumors despite all we know."

We don't know that all the "difficult" rumors originated with Weinstein, she may have been genuinely difficult at times and he capitalized that by exaggerating and using it against her in high places.

Both things may be true, that Weinstein shafted her career, and that she was difficult on set at her peak. We don't know if both those things were true, or only that Weinstein screwed her over. which has been confirmed by Peter Jackson.

[quote]That doesn't incriminate Sorvino for being 'difficult' at all. It's a condemnation of an interviewer who represented her negatively because he thought she was pretentious and weird in college, which has nothing to do with her professionalism as an actor.

Exactly and Variety published an article saying it was a hit piece. Gee what were the chances Weinstein had connections at Esquire Magazine?

The Harvey Weinstein influence is overblown. He hurt her career by not casting her in more of his own studios movies. He might have occasionally talked shit about her. But it was the Oscar that fucked up her career. Without it, she would have just kept getting work and let the career grow organically. With it, it results in lots and lots of work being turned down as well as people not going after her for roles they assume are below her.

Also i know someone who was part of her representation switch many years after the Oscar. They took her on because of the Oscar then found out she was cold, places weren't interested in hiring her for big roles. The weinstein thing wasn't discussed. And it wasnt about her reputation at the time--it wasnt that she was known to be difficult. This is hollywood. Drug addicts work regularly, the town is used to difficult people. She wasnt thought of as difficult. She just wasn't thought of.

You can't ask a somewhat recent oscar winner to come in and audition for a supporting part in a low budget movie. That kind of attitude limits the work they get. So for at least a decade after the oscar win, her representatives were only looking for starring or co-starring roles in movies that were interesting, artistically ambitious, etc. Or payday studio lead roles.

Look at how difficult it is for any actress who wins an oscar. Everything for years gets filtered through that lens until their careers take on a normal trajectory.

[quote]The Harvey Weinstein influence is overblown.

[quote] The weinstein thing wasn't discussed..

Of course it wasn't discussed. You both have no idea.

I'm doubtful of this new claim that every actress who didn't succeed in Hollywood was a victim of Weinstein blackballing. Maybe Weinstein told people she was difficult, but I doubt most of them fizzled out solely because of it - MANY stars survive difficult rumors if they have something else to offer.

If that article is a fair and accurate portrayal – and I emphasize IF because writers can be vicious takedown artists – she sounds exhausting, and possibly on the spectrum?

Definitely a Weinstein creation and casualty.

I liked her in Mimic, that giant cockroach movie directed by Guillermo Del Toro

R44 Kurdrow didn't need to work with her. She had the FRIENDS money rolling in 💰

As the e-mails released in the Sony hack demonstrated, studio executives and directors/producers shit talk actors ALL. THE. TIME. Harvey's shenanigans were known widely enough for 30 Rock to make jokes about them; even if Harvey really did shit talk Sorvino to Peter Jackson, how could Jackson have been stupid enough to believe him? He was either lying to gain #metoo points or looking for a convenient excuse. If anything, the publicity surrounding Harvey's downfall is probably the only reason Mira has multiple IMDb credits in 2020 and 2021. And her "open letter" to Dylan Farrow was cringeworthy; I notice she didn't return her Oscar to the Academy.

R56 considering 5 out of the 8 actors went on to win the Oscar after SAG awards in the first two years of it, I say it was a pretty good chance you could pull of a win at the Oscars even after losing the globe. Winslet was probably second with Joan Allen third. Being directed by Woody, and her famous father was probably enough to put Sorvino over the edge.

"even if Harvey really did shit talk Sorvino to Peter Jackson, how could Jackson have been stupid enough to believe him?"

Jackson was new to Hollywood at that point, and Sorvino would have been miscast in the role of the elf princess anyway. Liv Tyler got the role and she had a pre-Raphaelite beauty that worked for the role, Sorvino is very earthy and was good-looking without being beautiful. So really, it can't have taken much to persuade Jackson to not to use Sorvino.

But Jackson is the only one who's come forward about Weinstein's machinations, and I'm grateful for that but I wish someone else would talk about the kind of shit that Harvey pulled behind the scenes. But the Hollywood power brokers all cover for each other, they reveal nothing to the public.

Angelina Joliie, Gwyneth, Renee Zellweger all turned down Weinstein's advances and their careers didn't suffer.

Did they? Were you in the room?

They said they did at the time the scandal broke r83. Brad Pitt even threatened Weinstein to leave Gwyneth alone.

Gwynneth in particular was rumored to have a "special relationship" with Weinstein for years, for what rumors are worth.

He apparently would use that line on women r85.

He'd say look what I did for Gwyneth and Zellweger. I can do that for you if you just..........

Zellweger came out vehemently denying any relationship with him. (she doesn't seem like the type to play along with a deal like that. She seems sort of sensitive. I don't think she's cunning or ambitious enough to go thru with that kind of relationship. One wrong move from Harvey would have sent her running to the door and to another studio. What films of hers did he produce? I know Chicago was his but he wasn't very into it. He wanted Gangs of New York to be his Oscar winner that year. The Chicago people were actually upset by his like of attention and Rob Marshall refused to attend his parties.

[quote]Gwynneth in particular was rumored to have a "special relationship" with Weinstein for years, for what rumors are worth.

#merylknew

The Bridget Jones movies were Miramax as was Cold Mountain and A Price Above Rubies .

Some of these women claiming they never slept with Harvey are lying.

[quote]Some of these women claiming they never slept with Harvey are lying.

You were there? What did you see?

That 70's era model with the gapped teeth had a great Weinstein story. Can't remember her name but it was funny

r92 lauren hutton?

[quote]That 70's era model with the gapped teeth. Can't remember her name

Lauren Hutton?

The correct answer is her father. You had to deal with two cunts, not just one.

Yes, Lauren Hutton.