MIRA BELLA - 1999

You've heard about her big brain. You've seen her long legs. But there's still one important thing you don't know about MIRA SORVINO.

What Mira Sorvino really likes to do is dance. Salsa, flamenco, the hustle -- it doesn't really matter. If you're ever at a party and Mira Sorvino wanders in (it's not a crime to dream, is it?), just pump up the dance tunes and chances are she'll stick around, twirling and swirling. "Dancing is more fun than any other activity you can do in public," she says. "I just start smiling and beaming."

Then hit her with your best move. If you speak Mandarin, it might help. (Harvard '89; major: East Asian Languages and Civilizations.) Or you could try reminiscing about the old days growing up in Jersey. (The mean kids in third grade called her Mira Queera, but I'd stay away from that one if I were you.) If you know Woody Allen, Spike Lee or Marlon Brando you could try swapping stories. ("Woody only used one camera angle the whole way through a scene. It was very natural.")

OK, so maybe you're thinking you don't have much chance with Mira Sorvino. She's smarter than you, and much better looking than you probably deserve. Well, here's the thing: she's still insecure. She can spend an hour parsing out the current state of the film industry like the president of William Morris, yet she's afraid she came out sounding silly. (She didn't.) Yeah, she's a movie star. She won an Academy Award for Mighty Aphrodite. But deep down, she's just a regular gal. A gal who's not afraid to grab a backpack and Eurail across the continent. A gal who cries at the movies. A gal who just wants to dance a little. So here's our advice if you run into her at that party in your head: back off before it's too late. Go see her new movie, At First Sight, instead. Look at her picture on our cover again. Because brother, you better be pretty good if you're going to keep up with this one.

Our perception is that there are a lot more male than female actors who open films these days. Why do you think that is? I think for the huge-budget films, that's true. I think it's the norm right now -- but that's not always how it's been. There have been periods of film history when women were the stronger draws at the box office. Like Bette Davis -- then, the men were the secondary characters. The past twenty years have been pretty bad for women in terms of box office and "bankability." I'm not sure if it's economically valid or just the way things are now. We are talking in an era when certain actors get $25 million a picture. And those actors are considered to be strong enough to bring in quadruple that salary, at least, at the box office. And there's not one single woman who makes anything near that. It affects the writing. When it's decided to make one of these movies with a $20 million player, you can't afford a $12 million player as the female lead. So you write a smaller female role where you can use someone up and coming and pay her $100,000. That's why you don't see huge movies with two huge earners. It's a little distressing, because there are all these great screenwriters out there and these really interesting stories and interesting male characters. And the female characters are, more often than not, underwritten. But I've been treated very well by the business. I'm not miserable in any way. I'm very happy. More than anything, I don't care about the price tag. I just want to see the quality of the writing get better for women again. And I don't see any reason why it can't. I mean, there are good roles for women, there definitely are, but they should be more common.

Do you think you can tell when a film will do well commercially?

Not at all. I have a very strange kind of eclectic taste myself. One of my favorite films of all time is Like Water for Chocolate, which didn't do very well commercially. It was an art house film. And I loved Titanic. And I loved Dumb & Dumber. I loved Animal House. I just know if I like a film or if I don't like a film. The people who advise me can tell me whether or not a film's going to be a commercial success.

So do you ever take roles primarily because your advisors tell you the movie is likely to be a hit?

If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't take it. I learned through experience that you need to have good reasons for doing a film. People can say, "This is going to be a huge blockbuster success." And then if it isn't, and that's the only reason you did it, boy, are you an idiot. Because you've spent three or four months devoting all of your energy and your heart and soul into it and it's hollow, because you didn't really care about it. You're prostituting yourself. To go and make a movie that you don't feel anything for, and work movie hours -- eighteen hours a day -- you might as well be doing a job that you hate. Because it's the same thing.

Do you ever pick films because you just happen to like the other actors or the director on a personal level?

I think it's more because I think they're brilliant, not because I like them. People like to work with Woody Allen even before they ever meet him because they think he's a genius. He's the reigning New York humor genius cinematically.

But it definitely helps and improves things if you really love to work with the people on a project. Chances are it will be a better project because everyone is in sync, they're enjoying the work. I did a film about a year and a half ago; the movie is called Free Money and it stars Marlon Brando. It hasn't come out yet. I didn't care what part I played; I didn't care if I only had two lines. I did it and it was fantastic. It was purely about getting to work and getting to know my real hero, Marlon Brando. It was just, Wow! This is something I want to experience in my lifetime.

How important is ambition? And do you think it goes hand in hand with talent?

No. I know of all sorts of people, in all walks of life, who have talent and don't follow it up. Their lives are hidden under a bushel. Then you have examples of people who have ambition but who don't have talent. But I don't think talent can succeed without ambition -- except with a great deal of luck. If you don't have that self-belief, you will never make it. Because it is very hard. It is very hard at every level. Even at the highest level, you always have to stay on your toes. You are always having to campaign for the things you love. The best projects are few and far between and everybody wants them. You can't take rejection personally and that's very hard. You have to teach yourself to not take humiliation personally. I'm not going to let somebody destroy me by deciding that they don't want me in their project.

What's the best part and the worst part of the fame you've achieved?

The best part is the freedom to choose your artistic destiny. To have some influence over the roles you play and have opportunities offered to you so you don't have to fight for them all the time. And the response from the public is very moving at times -- to get a letter from somebody who appreciates your work is actually really gratifying. And also, the greater artistic freedom and economic maturity. But the downside is your loss of privacy, and that can be very invasive indeed. The loss of privacy is very strange. To see yourself in the tabloid pages and the gossip pages once a week, true or false, it's hurtful and it's strange. It makes you a little bit paranoid. You feel very exposed. You're still the same person you were, and yet all of the sudden your life is fodder for wagging tongues.

Is that part of the attraction of spending time abroad?

I'm my old self, my student self that used to come on the $299 round-trip ticket, no changes [of clothes], spread out on the floor across the aisle of the Eurail, backpacking. In Europe I feel totally relieved of the pressure of being a famous person because most people there, even if they've seen my work, respect my privacy.

Have you had any bizarre moments of seeing your image or name in some far-flung place?

I was in Cannes two years ago and I was walking through the back streets of this little market area. I saw a clothing store, low-priced clothing out on the street on a rack. And all of a sudden, on one of the tags, I saw myself! The poster image from Mighty Aphrodite was selling their product. I guess they pirated the imagery -- whatever -- but that was kind of amusing to me. And I was like, What? I was tempted to buy the dress, just to keep it with the tag and everything, or to just rip the tag off. But I didn't.

How important was networking in the beginning of your career?

I don't know that networking has ever been that important to me. Except that when I was starting out, I was a scrapper. I would go on anything that I could. I would do any short film -- as long as it was quality. Any interesting project, whether it paid or not, as long as it was some chance to gain experience. It wasn't some sort of hoity-toity high-powered networking situation. For me, it's not really about networking. I've never been in the "in" crowd.

What are your current professional ambitions?

I want to do some heavyweight stuff in the movies, and I want to work on stage. I want to sing and dance. I've been offered a Broadway musical and I'm toying with the idea. It's very tempting, but I don't know if I should take the time out.

Nothing makes me happier than singing and dancing. Singing is scarier, but I love singing. It's a very pure outlet. There's no pretense; you can't hide anything. But dancing to me is the joy to life. Dancing is more fun than any other activity you can do in public. I just start smiling and beaming and it's the difference between night and day. Say I'll be tired at a party and a friend will say, "Come on, Mira, let's just dance," and then three hours later.

For the Spike Lee film [Summer of Sam, due out this summer], John [Leguizamo] and I have two scenes dancing the seventies' hustles. It's actually incredibly complicated -- slinging around the room. This is what dancing really is. I had blisters all over my feet and I was happy as a lark.