Drama Queens - Mira Sorvino

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Mira Sorvino's story plays out like a movie itself with the resilience, reckoning, and unseen forces that can alter a life overnight. Mira candidly reflects on winning an Oscar for "Mighty Aphrodite" and the fallout that followed her rejection of predatory producer Harvey Weinstein.She also opens up about the profound influence of her father, legendary actor Paul Sorvino, and the twists of fate that nearly altered her path long before Hollywood ever called. To join Mira's fight against human trafficking, go to endht.org or aimfree.org.And learn more about her new movie "Signing Tony Raymond" here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime.

988, suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. Today we are joined by a cultural icon, an actress who's used her fame for good, for such gorgeous creativity, and who both behind the scenes and out in the world has been such a leader for women. Our guest today is Academy Award winner, Mira Sorvino. She began as a Harvard scholar and went on to captivate audiences, winning.

her Academy Award for Mighty Aphrodite, and then becoming everybody's on-screen bestie in Romy and Michelle's high school reunion. Behind that fame, Mira was shaped by a household that was steeped in craft and conscious. Her father, Paul Sorvino taught her the discipline of acting. Her mother was an incredible activist, and she was taught early, and she learned early to speak her truth. Those are lessons that she's carried into every role and every cause she has ever embraced. And that hasn't always been easy. Speaking out against harassment in Hollywood cost her opportunities when Harvey Weinstein retaliated against her, but she channeled that personal experience into incredible advocacy, becoming a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador fighting human trafficking and bringing

urgent stories of both survival and resilience into the public eye. Her career is a reflection of artistic excellence, an unwavering commitment to justice, and her latest film manages to echo all of those lessons in her life. It is poignant. It is hilarious. It is everything that I think we as an audience want right now. The film is called Signing Tony Raymond, and it is an American sports dramedy about a college football coach who is traveling to rural Alabama to recruit the nation's top high school defensive end, only to have to navigate rival recruiters, eccentric locals, and a dysfunctional family headed by Tony's mother, who of course is played by Mira.

Let's dive in and hear all about her iconic life and legacy. Well, Mira, I'm just so excited to have you on the podcast today. I'm going to be the professional person who interviews you, but for the next 30 seconds, I'm going to not and just tell you that your incredible filmography, the work you have done on screen, has been such a beacon for me as an actor. And what you do off screen is just so incredibly inspiring to me.

And when I get down about activism or being outspoken, I immediately think of a handful of women. I think about you. I think about Jane Fonda. I think about Viola Davis. And I'm like, it's gonna be okay. Keep going. So I just wanna thank you for all of the ways

you inspire me. and so many people. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, you're a brilliant actress and activist yourself, so coming right back at you. Well, that's really, really kind. Thank you.

I think I feel particularly geeked to ask you this question because I love to learn about people before the world knew you, before we could look up, as I said, your incredibly impressive filmography on IMDB. And your before sort of tickles me because

I am a New Jersey resident. My mother grew up in New Jersey. And when I was reminded that you grew up in Tenafly, I was like, oh, we have so much to talk about. Wait, did you grow up in Tenafly? I didn't, but my mom grew up in Teanex, so I spent so much of my childhood, you know, going there to be with my grandfather. And I'm just so curious if you could teleport back there today and interact with yourself at eight or nine or ten years old. Do you think there are characteristics in her even at that age that you would recognize in yourself today? Oh, for sure. I think I've done a lot of work as an adult recently at sort of getting back in touch with Little Mira and trying to protect Little Mira and validate Little Mira and just celebrate Little

mirror, for the core elements of who I am. Yeah. You know, Little Mira was always like excited about everything. Um, very introspective, huge reader.

Like I would go to my room. Like if I was punished to go to my room, they'd have to call me to come back out because, uh, you know, just, uh, I,

I just was stuck in a book and, and lost in it. And, um, so, um, yeah, so there's that. And then I was,

very inspired by social justice movements. My mom marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and that always made such a big impression on me. And, you know, I love the world of imagination and fantasy and I loved acting. Like I started acting in school plays at eight and my dad started teaching me then. And, you know, that, that bug that bit me then as, you know, carried me all the way through to now. Yeah. It's so interesting because I think being an actor and standing up for social justice really go hand in hand.

You know, we learn this craft of how to tell other people's stories and care about them. And when you tell that story about your mom or you talk about your dad who, you know, Paul Sorvino is an incredible actor in his own right for our friends at home. Did those lessons always come hand in hand, the acting and the, how people's stories fit into the landscape of the world? Or do you think you grew up in a household where one was about craft and one was about culture and they were just both so infused in your life? Well, my parents were great entertainers. And so we would have these dinner parties where you'd have these long tables full of luminaries like who would. as a bold surprise-winning playwright. My dad was best friends with Jason Miller, who wrote that

championship season for which my dad was nominated for a Tony on Broadway and then ended up doing the movie and then it ended up directing a version of the movie later for Showtime. Wow. And Jason Miller was also the actor who played Father Caras in The Exorcist, you know, so he was a great actor. Wow. He was a greater writer, a great thinker. Then we used to have opera singers there because dad was a big time opera singer. And other actors, and my mom's friends who were very dear, wonderful people, just salt of the earth people. And my grandparents were always there. So there was always this foment where, you know, this ferment or whatever, where we would just be

bouncing. And they encouraged us kids to really listen and talk with them, not just go off to the children's table or into the other room. Like I was always treated with a great deal of maturity. Like I was grateful for that. Like I was invited into the discussions. and brought to the cultural events and everything. So I think there was a real awareness of the wider world

and how you fit into it as an artist with opinions. This sort of merger of reality and storytelling, I find so beautiful because in my own way, looking back, I realized I had that in a fashion. My dad was a photographer for his whole career. I didn't have actors in my family, but I had people making art and, you know, gathering friends. And I think because I was an only child, very similarly to what you were saying,

I was always treated with maturity because my parents were social. And so I was social. And I think it's such a gift to give a kid that kind of both respect and to enable their curiosity really early. And when I look at your life and I think about, you know, you're being raised in this artistic space. Your parents are activists. You go to set with your dad. You know you want to be an actor.

And also you went to Harvard and got a degree in East Asian Studies. And I'm going, you are exactly my kind of person. I love the way your brain works. How did you pick it? What was the reason? Were you thinking you wanted to try something different? Or did you just want to immerse yourself in a completely new space? You mean Chinese studies? Yeah. So I was actually, I loved Chinese culture from the time I was 12 because I had a best friend Angela Wong, who's now a doctor, lives in Utah. But she, her family would take me with them to Chinatown, to Peking Opera. I'd watch her grandmother play Mahjong. And I read the good earth. And I just kind of fell in love with traditional Chinese culture. And then when I got to college freshman year, I did not.

know what I wanted to do. I wanted to do everything. Like I didn't want to narrow myself and they had one major called History and Lit where you could do both history and literature, but you had to already speak the language of the country. So for me it was either Anglophone or Francophone countries. And they were very rigid. So like if you took a course about philosophy of France, right, the French philosophers, it would not count. Like even if you were studying French history, history and lit for some reason, you know, or the art, it would not count. And then it was very rigid at the time. I really don't know how it is now. And Harvard also has this great core curriculum or did where you got to take this super wide variety of subjects. So for that, I'm very grateful. And you

studied with these amazing professors like Stephen Jay Gould or, you know, on evolutionary biology. But I just wanted to study everything. And I probably just should have devised my own major, or made an independent major, which I could have, but I didn't. And then I took this course called Art, Politics and Mythology in Bronze Age, China, I think, or archaeology. I don't know. It was taught by the famous Chinese archaeologist Casey Jong, and it was so fascinating. And then my section leader was like, oh, Mira, we have this major. Maybe you would be interested in it.

It's called East Asian Languages and Civilizations. And anything you studied, as long as it pertain to East Asia counted. So you could take Tom. poetry, you could take Shinto architecture, you could take the politics of Vietnam War, you could take anything as long as it pertained to East Asia. They did have a canonical choice. Of course, you had to choose like a home country, and mine was China. And so that took you through, like, you know, you read the Buddhist sutras, you studied Taoism and Confucius and the, you know,

the dynastic histories and everything in 20th century history. But then anything you took would relate. And so I chose that. And it was a hard row to ho because the Chinese language is so difficult. And learning it away from a Chinese speaking place is very hard. But in between my junior and senior year, actually, my parents got divorced. They broke up at Christmas when I was 20. Christmas Day, Christmas night.

You know, it was one of those like, thanks for ruin it. Right. You're like, that's the plot of a Netflix movie. Yeah, yeah. Just chase after the car in the snow. Daddy, don't leave. Oh, goodness. So yeah. And I had a really hard time focusing that spring semester of junior year because I just

was so depressed and it was just like my whole world had like fallen apart. And so I went to China for the summer to study third year Chinese at Beijing University and then I just decided to stay and because I felt like I was just scratching the surface of Chinese culture just starting to make some friends and my language had just gotten to the point where people didn't seem to be talking so quickly. Right. Because that's the thing like if you're learning a language and you watch like a news show. People seem to be speaking impossibly fast. And if only they would speak slower, you would understand it. And it was like a train that all of a sudden slowed down enough for me to jump on and have conversations and have comprehension. So I took a semester off

of school and I rented a room from a Chinese woman and I got like three jobs. I was editing English language translations of Chinese magazines and books and I would fix their English. And then I was singing jazz with two Chinese European jazz bands. And I had the fake books that my dad would send me in care packages. And they were all excited because they didn't have any of the music. So I was like a very popular person in Beijing because I had all this Western music. And this was still like everybody was still in Mao suits. Everybody was still, I'm old. So it was like people riding bicycles everywhere. It was nothing like the China of today, which has completely capitalized. Right. It was still super communist. So the iron rice bowl in full effect, like people had no hot water, people had no phones

in their apartments. It was all walk-ups. Like I had to go, I had to walk up six flights of stairs to get to my friend's apartment and then I would have to use hot boiled water for my showers. And then if I had to call my family, I had to go down the six flights and go to this little hut where this Shifu, this little man sat and I would give him money and then I'd call the US, you know, but it was like, So it was completely, and I had a bicycle, and my bicycle was stolen. I had to get another bicycle. But, you know, it was a different life. But it was also a very beautiful life because you forged these friendships with people that were really true.

But then Tiananmen Square happened and then it became unsafe to go back and distasteful to go back. And you didn't want to endanger your friends. And so everybody in the China field kind of backed off. And that turned me back towards New York and acting more full force. I mean, I was in a lot of plays at Harvard and I directed things. But I don't know that I would have ended up being a full-time actress had I gone back to China after graduation. If things had been different. Yeah.

So life is interesting. Yeah. And now for our sponsors. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988. Canada's suicide crisis helpline.

It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 9-88 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. So life takes that left turn. You can't go back. You do lean in full to acting. And then this career explodes. I mean, what is it that really sticks out for you?

Is it, because the obvious question for me is, you know, a fan and a follower of your work is Mighty Aphrodite. But does that, is there something before? That was my 10th film. Yeah. So I, and my first film was a film that I was actually on the crew of before I got cast on it because I was working at Tribeca Productions as a reader for Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro read script submissions.

And this script came in and I thought it was very good, but I didn't think it was right for their company. It was sort of like a baby goodfellas. It's about these three sort of want to be gangster boys in the five towns area of Long Island and written and directed by Rob Weiss. And so I said, Rob, I really like it, but I don't think this is going to be something they're going to go for. But, you know, if you want my help on it, so I was like, yes. So I became like an associate producer on it or so I don't know what my ultimate title was. It was a very minimal title for the amount of work that I ended up to bring on it. But then they asked me, if I'd be like the assistant casting director also. So, and then I became the reader for all the guys on the show, on the movie.

And I asked Rob, I was like, Rob, can I audition for Laura, the female lead? And he's like, nah, nah, I wanted to be cute, you know, bubbly like a cheerleader. You're too deep. And this is when I had my dark hair. So when I have my dark hair, I think I seem more like, you know, introspective. Intense. Yeah, yeah. More like my nerdy, like school.

self rather than a fun-loving crazy characters. And so I said, okay, so I started being the reader for all the male auditions. And ultimately, he was like, and then it was taking up so much of my time and I had my own pursuits. And I had done a few short films already, but I, you know, and I had done some plays, but I was like, I have to focus on my acting rap. I'm sorry, this is taking too much of my time. And he's like, okay, listen, I'll give you the role of Laura, because I'm liking what you're doing. but only if you stay on as as as third a d cast all the extras and drive the van and i was like okay so that that ended up happening so i had to like fill like a restaurant a diner with a hundred extras on Halloween night with no money they they we gave them nothing and no food and you know like

it's just stuff like that it was just and then three weeks into making the movie the movie fell apart and we had to stop shooting. And then we had to go around and sing for our supper and like show people footage and try and get it back on board. And they finally did. And then we finished it and then it went to the Sundance Film Festival and that started all of our careers. And that really changed your life in that moment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then I, you know, I did like, I was still moonlighting on and off. I was still bartending, waitressing, teaching Chinese to Ben Taylor, James and Carly's son, James Taylor, yeah, because he was 16 and he wanted to go back to China and Tibet to study Wing Chung.

And I think it was when Chong is one of the, you know, one of the Chi Gong studies. He was a master, you know, martial artist. And he wanted to learn Mandarin. So I was teaching him. So that was one of my crazy, like, you know, after college jobs. But I was studying with Win Hanman and I just adored. He was the greatest teacher in New York, and we had such a wonderful community in that class. Yeah, and it just, I kept getting jobs from class, like people would tell me about something,

or I would go and workshop my audition material in class. Oh, that's so smart. Mighty after I use my 10th film, I believe. Yeah. Well, it's always that thing they say out in the world. It takes 10 years to become an overnight success, right? Sure. And it's like people think about you and they,

oh God, and she just exploded with this movie and then this Oscar nom and then this Oscar win. But yeah, it's your 10th movie. It's like, you know, but the world saw this. I mean, I can't imagine what the moment felt like, but I think getting ready for today, you know, going back and seeing some of, you know, the footage and the photos and seeing your dad in the audience watching that moment for you. Was that just the coolest? I mean, what a cool thing to win an Oscar in the first place, but your dad's sitting there.

I just can't imagine it's this massive career moment and this incredibly intimate moment for you as a human in your family as well. Sure. It went all the way back to, you know, when I was eight years old and he was teaching me to cry. And I had to go to the middle of the stairways halfway up, halfway down,

and sit there until I was sobbing over whatever fantasy or memory I'd put in my head and then he's like now do the scene. Wow. So and then he would teach me to, you know, like emotional preparation, substitution, you know, never. So he would come to my plays as a high schooler and he would be like afterwards every other parent was like, honey, that's amazing. And he would be like, very good, Mira. I just have two notes.

And then he would sit me down for like two hours and break down the entire performance by beat moment by moment. scene by scene. And on the one hand, it was a little bit like, I wish he had just loved it unconditionally, but at the same time, like, those were invaluable lessons. Like, one of the things I remember him saying is like, you're killing your first impulse when you sigh and then speak. When you go and then you speak, you're making an intellectual choice. You're not going with your instinct. Just speak. Let your unconscious, you know, do the line. Don't, don't think, don't change it. Don't make an intellectual choice. A thinking actor is a stinking actor, you know, from Stanford Meisner, right?

Because he was one of Meisner students and Bill Esper. And my mom was also a product of their teaching. And my parents met in Bill Esper's class. They were scene study partners. But, you know, and he would be like, stick with the other fellow and you'll never be wrong. You might be boring, but you'll never be inauthentic. You know, so like that's the funny thing. When you work with actors who seem to want to, like, top you or change their performance

from your side to their side, it's so ridiculous because then they're kind of killing the strength of the scene because the scene is the sum total of the two people's alchemy in each moment, you know, and you just have to vibe off of, you know, and give back what you're getting, whether it's low or high. And so all of those things were so valuable. And I had watched him work my whole life. And dad was never nominated. And for Goodfellas, he was not nominated, which was sort of crazy. And there was a decision at some point, there was a, There's a famous picture of the four of them from Goodfellas with him, Joe Pesci, De Niro, and Ray Liotto. And then there's a version of that picture where Dad's not in it.

And it's like they cut them out of the picture and they kind of went for the three shot, even though there's a bunch of those four shots out there. And so many people got, you know, recognized for that film. And it's arguably maybe the, you know, him and Brando. I mean, are the best Godfathers ever, right? You know, and Bali and Goodfellas is iconic, right? And it was so different from his real personality. Because dad was not that heavy and not that sort of kind of lead in the stare that he had,

that he had to work on. And he said one day when he looked in the mirror, he got frightened. And he almost decided he didn't want to do the movie because it was bringing up all this darkness, right? Wow. And so I think I just wanted to share it with him. You know, I just wanted to say, well, if you hadn't been who you were with me, I never would be standing here. so I want to say that, you know, me getting this is you getting this.

And that's when he burst into tears. I said, when you honor my father, when you give me this award, you honor my father, who's taught me everything I know about acting. That's when he exploded into tears. And he had told me he wasn't going to cry because he had cried at the Golden Globes. And he realized he was like, I don't want to pull focus from you, mirror. So I am not going to cry. And that happened.

That's so sweet. Yeah. And people told us for years that that was their favorite Oscar moment because it reminded the love that they shared with their parent, you know. So it was a personal moment that wasn't necessarily about art at all. It was just about love. Yeah. I love that, though, because any artist, I mean, you love your work,

but every human is so much more than what they do. You know, whatever your career might be, you have this whole life and identity. And I think when you're able to merge the two, it's got to be powerful. as a person, but I think it's really powerful for everybody who watches also. Yeah. We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick.

I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988, suicide crisis helpline. is funded by the government in Canada. It's interesting because that's such a joyous moment and experience, you know, and then I think to sort of the other side of it,

not that it's not wonderful, but powerful, scary, intense, or the words that come to mind when I think about the merger of self and an artistic platform in advocacy. And, you know, I think back when the Me Too letter was getting put together, in 2017 and it was you know who's going to sign this thing that's going to go in the new york times and and and people on on calls that i was on about that talking about you and your work and and the experience that standing up for yourself and other women had had put you through behind the scenes that finally came to light you know to have this sensation

career and also to know that someone whom you simply asked to respect you as a person and your boundaries tried to get in the way of your career, discouraged you from being cast in things. I mean, what a, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but from the outside it feels almost like a like a whiplash, you know, I am amazed at the grace with which you have carried yourself through all of that, what did it mean to you to know that you weren't crazy when all of that came to light

and people did say, oh yeah, I was told not to cast you in this film or I was told not to look at you for this job. It doesn't help, but it helps. Is that the right observation? I mean, sure, but I, okay. So, and the thing is that I actually turned Harvey down three times. And when I had spoken to Ronan Farrow, I'd forgotten about the third time, and it only came to mind later.

But it was right after the third time that he put the kibosh on my career and blacklisted me for 20 years. I was blacklisted for 20 years. I didn't do a large studio movie for 20 years, and I've still only done two since 2018. So I was at the time of the world. I had an Oscar. And 1998, he shut my career down for 20 years. years and I still worked. I did indies and I did television but you know I did turn down like one television opportunity that would have taken me too much away from my little children you know so

like I could have had a bigger career on television probably but I was you know I have four kids so and I really wanted to be present there for them and so you know I said piecemeal together my work through indies and movies and you know television movies and television shows But when I found out, because I had kind of made peace with my career, having fallen from being A-list to somewhere nebulous, you know, and I still love what I do, and I still think I have the same talent and drive. But I was like, okay, I guess it wasn't meant to be. you know i guess i just wasn't meant to continue at that level of career right and when i read on twitter it was like december after you know the fall of the me-to stuff coming out and me being part of ron and pharaoh's silence breaker group and i saw that peter jackson had given an interview

in which he admitted that he was going to cast me and ashley judd in the lord of the rings trilogy and then did not because Harvey and Bob, I believe, but definitely Harvey told him that we were crazy not to work with us. I mean, I had made four movies with Miramax. So how crazy could I have been? Why did they keep hiring? You know, I don't think it could be possible, right? But that really sort of broke my heart because it felt like there was this dark hand of that had come into my life and stolen something that was rightfully mine away from me, just for me not wanting to sleep with this disgusting man, this disgusting human being, this evil, evil, evil predator.

And that hurt, and that took a while to get used to because the one thing of making peace with, okay, well, it's just not your night kid, it's just not happening, is different from, I'm going to destroy you, I'm going to make sure you never enjoy what you deserve, because you wouldn't play my game. Yeah. You wouldn't let me victimize you. You wouldn't make a deal with me. And now you're going to suffer

and I'm going to make you suffer indefinitely, indefinitely. And he had that kind of reach. Like, I don't think it was just that he told certain filmmakers. I think that Harvey had a reach with companies beyond his own, with casting directors beyond his own. And that there was literally a blacklist. And there were other actors on it that I know that were not female that did not reject him that he just didn't like and and that he affected their career,

damped their careers immensely. And once the Me Too stuff came out, they rebounded. So, you know, and I've become good friends with a lot of the fellow silence breakers and they're really wonderful women and I just, my heart breaks for all of them. And I feel like, you know, there's a second wave of that sorrow and brokenheartedness right now because of the Epstein files. I think we all feel such sorrow for all the victims living and dead of these, you know, this horrendous, horrendous culture of abuse and absolute lack of morality and lawlessness and disgustingness and like predatory, you know, more than rape. Like the things that we've heard, the things that we've read in the files are so heinous. You're like, how can this world be true? You know, how can these people that we thought we knew be this bad and have such little regard for the beauty of children?

You know, children are the most defenseless and delightful creatures on this earth and to be hurting them in the worst of ways and just laughing about it or finding some kind of sick power. Yes. like deriving power ritually from abusing people, abusing girls, children, boys, animals. It's unfathomable. It's unfathomable. And I think I've been having a really hard time with my own emotions during this time. Because, you know, we thought like Harvey was maybe the worst of it. He's not even the worst of it.

I think that's what has broken my heart is to realize that at every level there's a version of this. to exactly your point that that someone would not just want to hurt you in a moment, but would want to try to hurt you forever because you didn't want to be possessed by them in a way they wanted that you did not, because you dared to say, I don't want that. And so the answer is no to have had, you know, my girlfriends and I were so inspired by all of you. we spoke out about a boss we'd worked for who was terrible. And in the 22 years, I've been a full-time working actor.

I've had one really creepy boss and one really terrible co-star. And I think in 22 years to work with like two bad dudes out of, as you'll know, the thousands of people on thousands of sets and great executives and great writers and great grips and great transvo guys and like the best of the best people. in our weird little circus. I recently was being onboarded to what I thought was going to be the job of my dreams. And a man in power said, mm-mm, she has problems at work.

I don't need that energy here. And I thought, wait a second. So standing with my friends on one set and standing up for other women when I was in the power position on another, two instances of standing up in 22 years of maintaining wonderful relationships and friendships with everybody else I've worked with for 22 years. I'm the problem and not like the dudes who do this. And I've never been in your position, you know, going to win an Oscar and going to maybe do one of the biggest trilogies of all times. But even in my own relative version of the world,

I see that ripple effect where I go, oh, because I've said no, are certain people going to say no to me for the rest of my career? Is that what it's going to be? You just don't know. You know, you just don't know who is what and you just don't know. You just don't know if just being outspoken is not vanilla enough. I don't know. I don't know. And the sad part is, to your point about these files and these things, you, when the blinders come off, you go, oh, my God, it's literally everywhere. Every version, every place, every level. every age, every, oh my God, and why? And I don't know the answer to that. I think it always has been. I think it's something broken about our species that there has always been this kind of raping and pillaging instinct. And I don't know how we fix that. I don't know how we do it. But I think it's, sadly, it's just endemic. And, you know, having worked against human trafficking for over 20 years, As I started working on it in 2004 with the MSC International for two years as there stopped

violence against women campaign spokesperson. And then from 2009 to last year, I was UNODC's goodwill ambassador against human trafficking. And now I'm on the United Nations voluntary trust fund for victims of trafficking a person. So its short name is UNVTF. And I'm on the board of trustees for that now. And so I've seen this horror. I did not, I was naive. I did not think it went up to the highest levels of society.

I didn't understand that. I knew that it was organized crime and I knew that some people were getting very fat off of the exploitation of 50 million people across the globe. But I just, I think I was reluctant to really look into that heart of darkness and understand how very vertically integrated it was. and that came as a shock. Right. And I think the whole world is still reeling from these things. And I think, you know, other countries are handling it a lot better than we are right now. But hopefully, eventually, there'll be some criminal investigations and some indictments and convictions eventually.

Because otherwise, what has happened to us, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Well, I think you're right. And I think that's what I was going to ask you about is I'm so. heartened by and grateful for the organizations you just listed that you have worked with for 20 years. I mean, that that you in your own way have taken your version of experiencing that kind of darkness and transmuted it into advocacy for so many other people. It's understanding that organizations like that have been fighting this fight for so long

that is really, I think to me, the only beacon of hope seeing how vertical this is, to your point. Do you, are there ways that people who want to take the awful and try to add their reaction and rage for that to a resiliency? Are there ways for them to get involved? Are there ways for them to support anti-human trafficking efforts, the work at the UN? And like, I know my listeners want to rage and change this stuff. And so I'm curious as we have you as an expert with us today, where would you point people to get involved? Well, there's always local organizations. Most communities have anti-trafficking groups within them.

And there's like shelters for women and girls. There's outreach. You know, there's education. there's people who lobby for laws in their states to be strengthened or money to be raised. If you want to do it on the, you know, the global scale, if you want to donate a little money to UNVTF, which you can go to endhht.org and you'll find information about UNODC, the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes, anti-trafficking programs, and then you'll find a link to a donation page. And we help trafficking survivors across the world, like all of our grants go to organizations that are on the ground, working to provide aid directly to victims and survivors, helping them exit and then helping them rebuild their lives. And we are in 66 countries and we've helped hundreds of thousands of people so far. But, you know, including the U.S. We're in the U.S. We're in Latin America. We're in Europe. We're in Asia. We're in, you know, Africa. But I do love the organization.

can aim Agape International Missions. I made a documentary about them with CNN Freedom Project called Every Day in Cambodia, and that was about virgin sales in Cambodia of young girls in this very impoverished community of paperless immigrants who were just

desperate and loan sharks would create these debts and then come back to collect by taking the 12-year-old girl to auction off her virginity and just I mean just but this organization made like systemic change throughout this community like they actually were healing the whole community and giving the parents ways to be

self-sustained rather than selling their kids as their only option to keep food in their mouths and changing the culture and educating the kids they built this school that can hold over 3,000 students and they take all these kids who used to 100% go into sex trafficking or be taken into sex trafficking by the time they were 12 or 13 like now they're having kids be able to go on to high school, go on to college, and be able to take their family out of poverty through a dignified way. So they're great, aim. Thank you for that. I think giving people trusted places to go is always something that our audience is excited about.

And then I get excited when, you know, we get emails or DMs on the show. And people are like, I donated my birthday to this cause. And my family helped me raise all this money. It makes me want to sob. It's special to kind of see, I think, that potential. potential in that. We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988 Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case.

Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. I want to get us near the end of the interview on a high note. And I think they connect. It's not even necessarily a hard pivot. It's actually so interesting to me. You know, the way you're talking about desperation in a family versus opportunity, it's not lost on me that the new movie signing Tony Raymond, which is such a sweet film, and it's so beautiful.

And you play such a dreamboat of a mom. I love her. But it also, frankly, you're talking about how. you know, the world of professional sports can be predatory. Young people can be taken advantage of. They can also get the future of their dreams. And all this work you've done, it seems to me, has to have influenced this woman you play, this mom,

where you just say, like, listen, my kid is a phenom and a talent and all these things, and I'm going to protect him. I'm going to make sure he has, you know, the future that he deserves. do you feel like some of that advocacy that's in your bones affected, you know, who you play in this movie? I have to say it's probably being a mom that affected it, being a mama bear, because I have four kids and two of my sons are very high-level baseball players. And your heart bleeds for them because they work so hard.

And you feel like this is just a dollars game in a way. You know, people are just trying to earn money for their schools by, filling the stadiums or getting their boosters to donate or whatever. And so, you know, but I think also, I think Sandy is operating on another level, too, of feeling like they've been marginalized. These people are like very poor. And she's lost a child in the past due to, you know, sort of a crazy accident, but, you know, being in the wrong environment.

And maybe if she was had a little. bit more help and a little bit more money, she wouldn't have been living in an area where her daughter could catch like a bacterial infection that killed her, you know? So she's, she's just kind of, I think she has a chip on her shoulder for being overlooked, for being sort of written off as a crazy, dumb lady living in the sticks, you know, and she, she's kind of crying out for her own dignity as well as the protection of her son because she sees these slick coaches come into town trying to promise them the moon and stars just to get their son to sign with them. But they don't mean most of what they say. Most of what they say is just campaign promises, right? So she's just

there to assert that I am not stupid. I see what you're doing and I still have some kind of agency even though she's drowning herself in pills and booze. And then that creates some pretty outlandish behavior too, which is actually quite comedic. So I kind of loved her unfettered her sort of wild cat spirit. You know, she's just like, yeah, I was going to say, Mama Bear like a grizzly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But inside there's like a real beating heart, you know, that has like this suffering that's kind of eating away at her. And I love that there's a combination of comedy and drama in this movie. Yes. It's a wonderful ad mixture. Yeah.

Me too. It's my favorite kind of thing to watch. Friends, we're going to be back to really dive into signing Tony Rehn's. with the incredible Mirosurvino. But before we go on today's episode, I have to ask you our very favorite question. From this moment, when you look out at the year ahead, and maybe it's an advocacy, and maybe it's in motherhood, and maybe it's, I don't know, some random thing on your bucket list, what feels like your work in progress? Oh, gosh. There's a few, there's a personal project

that I've been making about Italy that I hope really gets off the ground. which is really connected to my emotional connection to Italy's culture that I was raised by, you know, with my grandparents and like their Italy. So we'll see if that happens. If it does, I will be like the happiest camper. Like I just, you know, it'll be a sort of emotional homecoming for me to get to do that and share that with the world. And then there's a very, a project that's super near and dear to my heart that we've been

working for years to get off the ground. and I think we are infinitesimally close to it being greenlit, but I can't speak about it right now. But if it happens in the next couple of days, I'll let you guys know and then you can, you know, give that note or whatever. Yeah. But that would be huge. That would be just like a full circle thing for me and I would be so joyous doing it. But, you know, the rest of things I'm just trying to focus on really connecting with my children as they're still around because one of my daughters is in. college and away. And Johnny being home near Pepperdine is like amazing for us because we get to

have them back for a year. It was like unexpected, you know. But I have two kids left living at home. And I just want to be as focused and connected and not frittering around my time like looking at my phone when they're around or something like that, you know, really just being there for them and treasuring them because this life is like that, you know. Having lost dad, having lost friends, you know, seeing what life does, like, I just want us to be there for each other as much as possible because ultimately that's the most important thing. And that's, you know, let's circle back to like the Harvey Wanstein robbery of my career. At the same time, if I had stayed an A-list actress, if I had gone from movie to movie to movie, which is what I was doing in the 90s, I had like three

weeks off a year and that was it. Like I would go back to back and I was almost having a nervous breakdown because it was so much pressure. I would not have met my husband. I would not have had my four specific children. I probably never would have had four children because I would have been too busy and too worried about the time it would take to recover from the pregnancies and get back down to fighting weight and be like, you know, professionally available. And, you know, I would have been a more self-centered person, I think. And I would not have had the time that I have had to fully fling myself headlong into the anti-trafficking work, which has become a gigantic thing for me. It's really my second, like, non-paid career.

It's like a, it's a blessing for me to be able to have an ongoing voice in that fight. So, you know, my grandmother used to say, not every evil comes to destroy us, which is a, you know, southern Italian epithet. and non-an-animale and I have held on to that and not that I'm ever that I'm ever saying it's okay what he did or what he took from me but I have a beautiful life

that I wouldn't trade is what I'm saying but I think the beauty and what you're saying and this is a work in progress for me is to realize from your from your grandma's saying I have some of those from my nonas in northern but that even where things break that's where the light gets in and I think when you find the light in the ways you've been broken I actually think that's how you alchemize the way humans

have a tendency to be into the potential of what we could be if we keep doing that work and I think that is that's like that's like that. the craft of humanity and I think particularly for mothers that is the work because women are going to be the ones who fix this so I don't at least as someone who's so thrilled to share space with you today I don't think it's a an excusing of what happened to you but I do think it's a figuring out how there was no way your life was not going to be beautiful no matter what anybody else tried. And I, sorry, I love that for you and I love the example that that sets. So, thank you. Sure. Yeah. And I couldn't have done any of this without God, right? I'm very,

I'm quite religious. So like, Jesus and God for me, if I did not have them, I would be dead. I'd be dead right now, honestly. So, you know, that is my personal way of getting through it as well as with the love of family and friends and my husband and everything. But I would have to say that. It would be false not to say that. Yeah. I love that for you. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.