Mira Sorvino, the Academy Award-winning actress known for movies like “Mighty Aphrodite,” “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” and most recently, “Sound of Freedom,” spotlighted her children in a performance on “Dancing With The Stars.” Sorvino was competing on the reality show alongside pro Gleb Savchenko until she was eliminated this week — and her choice for a “most memorable year” tribute was an easy one.
Sorvino told Entertainment Tonight (ET) that she and Savchenko would recreate the iconic “Romy and Michele” dance for their contemporary routine, and as in the movie, it was set to Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” But they had a special guest star, too: Sorvino’s daughter, Mattea Backus.
“I am so excited because, this week, I get to live out another dream which is to dance with my daughter,” she said. “Gleb choreographed this incredible dance to ‘Time After Time’ about the love between parents and a daughter and, you know, her going away and coming back but love always returns and we always end up together in the end. And it’s really beautiful.”
For her dance, Sorvino chose the year 2004 to celebrate. “That’s the year I got married to my husband, Christopher Backus, and that’s the year we had our first child, Mattea, and my life changed forever for the better,” she said. “My heart just grew 10 times and I just love my children, my family, so much. And to have my daughter here today, it’s just mind-blowing!”
She and her husband, actor Christopher Backus, are still together nearly 20 years later, and have four children together.
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Originally, Sorvino’s star was burning brightly coming off her Oscar win, as well as her iconic role as Romy alongside Lisa Kudrow’s Michele. But Sorvino quickly became one of many actresses victimized by Harvey Weinstein. In 1995, at the Toronto International Film Festival, she said she was in a hotel room with Weinstein, who “started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around.”
At the time, Weinstein was working with Sorvino; his company, Miramax, was the distributor for “Mighty Aphrodite.”
A few weeks later, Weinstein pressured Sorvino to allow him to come to her apartment; nervous for her safety, she asked a male friend to be there as well. “Harvey had managed to bypass my doorman,” she said. “I opened the door terrified, brandishing my twenty-pound Chihuahua mix in front of me, as though that would do any good.”
When she told him her friend would be coming as well, he left; after that, she said Weinstein blacklisted her in Hollywood. “There may have been other factors, but I definitely felt iced out and that my rejection of Harvey had something to do with it,” she said, with “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson backing up Sorvino’s claims.
Weinstein, a vocal abortion supporter, eventually had a massive downfall with the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements, and was eventually found guilty on multiple rape charges in several states.
Sorvino’s career, meanwhile, has been having a resurgence — but it’s the time with her family that means the most.
Her daughter, who has trained as a ballet dancer, said the dance with her mother would be especially meaningful. “We’ve never danced together before, besides once in The Nutcracker — but I was like 5,” she said. “It’s gonna be something I know that we’ll remember and cherish for like the rest of our lives.”
