In Quitters (which opens in select theaters and On Demand on July 22), Mira Sorvino plays May, the rehab-residing mom of a San Francisco teenager struggling with his family’s messy circumstances. While the story is anything but superficial, Sorvino’s scenes in the oceanfront rehab facility, which were filmed on the Northern California coast, are certainly visually stunning. “I remember thinking it was killer real estate,” says the Academy Award winner (she took home the statuette for Best Supporting Actress in 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite). “While my character is there, she’s removed from the difficult reality of her home life and can see herself in this rarified air of the sea and endless horizon. It’s not real life, but a place for a pause and a new beginning.” In real life, Sorvino’s home, which she shares with her husband, actor Christopher Backus, and four children, is a pretty great place for recharging as well. Read on for the actress’s thoughts on everything from selfies to supper to antique stoves.
Describe your home in five words or less. Beachy, East Coast, vintage cottage, ocean view. (I know that’s six, or possibly seven, words.)
What’s your favorite piece that you purchased for this home? A vintage, painted, curved wicker couch in green. It feels like something one of the characters in The Great Gatsby could have owned.
What’s on your bedside table? A ton of books, a candle from Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and an alabaster lamp. It’s a vintage metal-and-glass medical table, so it doesn’t have room for much.
Most nights you eat dinner . . . At our big round table in a sort of open-concept living room/dining room space. I like the round table because then everyone in our six-person family can easily see each other and talk. When we have larger groups, including my dad or friends, we go to the pool terrace, where, once again, it’s a round table, but bigger, and then a little table for the littler guests.
Before you leave the house you always . . . Freak out about whether I have left our vintage stove on. I’m a little crazy.
What song has been playing most often in your home of late? I really like that MisterWives song "Our Own House," with its stirring anthem ‘We’ll never fall apart’ and the great horn section. The singer, Mandy Lee, has got some pipes on her.
What was last playing on your TV? We have been binge-watching Lady Dynamite—we really fell in love with the show. We generally watch in our bedroom. I have a ‘No TV in the living room’ policy.
What famous person, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? I’m going to say Marilyn Monroe. I loved playing her in the HBO movie Norma Jean and Marilyn, and I have always loved her. To hear her version of things would be a gift.
You get home after a long day, the first thing you do is . . . Take off my shoes, hug my giant ridgeback mix and my other two little doggies—they run out to greet me as soon as I come through the gate. Then I go through the same with my four kiddos. We are a very affectionate family, always telling each other we love each other. I know my Xanax-addicted character talks about how close her family is in Quitters, much to her son’s chagrin and disbelief, but, in real life, my family is super close.
What was the first thing you splurged on when you made it big? A really good camera: I have always loved photography. I even built a darkroom in my home. But now I’ve gone primarily digital, and the darkroom is the computer. I enjoy Instagram because it’s sort of like a worldwide photo gallery. My publicist has exhorted me to include more selfies, which I try to do, but mostly I just post stuff I’ve shot that I find interesting or beautiful.
How does production design help inform your work as an actress? I actually really enjoy collaborating when possible on my character’s digs. I did a film called Like Dandelion Dust a few years ago with Barry Pepper. The director, John Gunn, encouraged me to bring my own touch to the home for our characters, a troubled couple who are trying to win back their biological child after giving him up for adoption. I shopped at all the local Goodwill-type shops (which was all that my character could afford) and found blankets, pictures, vases, and doilies that felt like her world. One of my favorite finds was a set of little brass rocking horses, which Barry plays with forlornly in a scene, symbolizing the moments of childhood we had missed with our son.
Quitters is in many ways a coming-of-age tale. Visually, what do you remember of your own teenage experience? My home was a New Jersey colonial—rambling and well suited to our large family. It was mostly quite traditional, but I remember my parents allowing an interior designer to take over the formal living room: It had chocolate-brown wallpaper, modern art, and tribal-sculpture lamps as well as Asian touches and a large Venetian mirror. It was the site of many parties my parents threw and felt very exotic, and I felt privileged to be there. But my favorite room was a glassed, elegant room they called the Florida room, full of comfy wicker furniture—it’s where I read, watched the sunset, listened to the rain, and dreamt of the future.
