Mira Sorvino
Born: September 28 1964
Where: New Jersey, USA
Sorvino was catapulted into the Hollywood firmament when she won best supporting actress Oscar for Woody Allen's romantic comedy Mighty Aphrodite.
Other notable appearances include Barcelona, Quiz Show and Summer of Sam.
Acting is in the blood in the Sorvino family - her father Paul appeared in Martin Scorcese's GoodFellas as well as Kissinger in Oliver Stone's Nixon.
Like dad, the Mandarin-speaking Harvard graduate has chosen character-based roles such as John Leguizamo's wife in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam and opposite Val Kilmer in At First Sight.
Adept at assuming accents, hair colours and various ethnic backgrounds, the Italianate star first came to the attention in 1994 in Whit Stillman's Barcelona.
She entered the mainstream later that year playing the Jewish intellectual wife of Rob Morrow in Robert Redford's Quiz Show.
An accomplished and versatile actress on American TV (Swan Crossing, Guiding Light), she returned to cinema to land a best supporting actress Oscar as the squeaky hooker in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Mighty Aphrodite.
She subsequently portrayed Matt Dillon's long-suffering bulimic girlfriend in Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls and later appeared in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
Next she could be seen in mutant horror film Mimic (1997) and then teamed up with martial arts icon Chow Yun-Fat for The Replacement Killers.
The fomer girlfriend of Quentin Tarantino then starred opposite Harvey Keitel in art house favourite Lulu on the Bridge and went on to make Too Tired to Die (1998).
Subsequent work includes Holocaust drama The Grey Zone and starring opposite Mariah Carey in the female mafia crime feature Wisegirls.
She starred in the lengthy American Civil War sage Gods and Generals and the Robin Williams sci-fi thriller The Final Cut.
