The; hooker; who seduced Woody

There was, as always, a rather restrained atmosphere in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel in London when Mira Sorvino took her first tottering steps towards an Oscar-worthy performance. What occasioned the glances was her outfit - clumpy mules decorated with plastic flowers, a Junior Gaultier dress of black spandex with fluorescent green stripes and a fishnet top.

As afternoon tea was being served, she announced to the the uniformed porter: "Mr Allen's room, please." Moments later she was in Woody Allen's penthouse suite discussing racial prejudices in China

Finally, the talk got around to what she was there for - to play a whore. Which she does to perfection in Mighty Aphrodite, Allen's latest lament about New York life, which comes out here this month. Mira Sorvino was thought not to be right for the part, hence her determination to be in character and get herself an audition.

Allen, never hesitant with his movie instincts, was sold. The Chinese- speaking Harvard-graduate would be perfect as the awful, classless vulgarian prostitute and porn actress Linda.

"Not only is she cheap, she's stupid," says Mira, 28. "Linda's somebody who misses the boat a little. But what she does know about is the human heart."

The actress elevates the role of a brutally dumb tart into something joyful. The owlish maestro admits: "I wrote this nasty, cheap, stupid prostitute but Mira makes her touching, funny and convincing."

Mira Sorvino, at six foot, is a towering presence. After hearing her Mighty Aphrodite voice - a sort of cracked Judy Garland - the educated Harvard tones are a surprise but, as she says, the voice is just another part of the act. And, unlike Linda, she thinks before she speaks. With no steady boyfriend, she needed a date for the Golden Globes, where she won the best actress award. Her movie minders offered to fix her up with the usual Hollywood hunks. She took her younger brother Philip.

Mira, basking in her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, had dropped most of Linda's image, apart from the dyed blonde hair which drops way down her back. She is gentle in her mannerisms. There is no luvvie extravagance about her - it's her IQ that bulges. She is serious in her thoughts and what she says. And that makes her transformation into Linda even more remarkable.

She dresses as conservatively as her attitude. She favours jeans and white T-shirts, more formally black trouser suits or tunics and, for the requisite Hollywood glamour evening, it is a black sheath dress with a hint of cleavage and a touch of jewellery. She says she does not need to advertise herself as a "star". Acting is, she insists, simply the job she wants to do. She is easy to like - there is apparently no hidden agenda. A fuss, you feel, would upset her.

Talking about her "Woody Allen experience", she says: "I was intimidated. I wondered if I was up to the task of playing in a Woody Allen film. But he would just tell me to relax, be natural and not seem like I'm acting. Eventually, I just fitted into his world.

"What concerned me is that I'm not a fun person. I'm not comfortable with myself but I try to get over it. I am too serious."

Mira says she felt this even more when she researched Linda by clumping around New York in hooker gear. "I found that people were extremely open and friendly to her in a way they are not to me. If I had enough guts I'd always be that open and sweet."

The actress's father is eminent character actor Paul Sorvino and her mother, Joanna, is a drama therapist Her parents divorced eight years ago and she says she took every job she could to escape from the upset.

"My father coached me from the time I was eight. He'd come to my school plays and afterwards give me three hours of notes. He'd say: 'Honey, I loved it. It was great, but there's just one thing . . .'

"He talked a lot about the difficulties of acting, the rejection and the disappointment, but when I was 16 he approved of me going after an acting job. Well, he reluctantly approved. It is not very much help to have an actor father. I shunned it really. I have this independent streak and did not want any handouts. I waitressed for a year and a half and didn't even get one single part."

Mira wasn't single-minded about acting. She spent a year at Beijing University, returned to the States and joined a group encouraging teenagers to read, and co-produced a film about Russian anti-Semitism.

All this seems light years away from Linda's world of phallic cacti and copulating pig ornaments which adorn her apartment, and caustic language about casual sex. Mira approached her latest part like an unbiased academic.

"I talked to some porn actresses. They have a sweetness and a professionalism. It's something I locked horns with my mother about. Do we have to label sex evil or sinful? Isn't it like pizza? When it's great it's amazing and when it's OK it's still pretty good.

"I was almost 20 when I had my first sexual experience. I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. People have forgotten how great kissing is. It can be the most exciting thing. If someone kisses well it's intoxicating."

Mira will next be seen in the States playing that greatest of American cinematic icons, Marilyn Monroe, in the TV movie Norma Jean and Marilyn. "It's an honour to play her but it's a very scary thing. I almost felt I was treading on sacred ground because I love Marilyn."

Mira Sorvino's image is of the sex bombshell rather than Ivy League scholar but she's not unhappy about it. "I think there are two sides to me. The serious, academic side says I should be in the Peace Corps and the other side wants to be Marilyn Monroe."

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