She’s beautiful, intelligent and successful, a deserving Hollywood darling. But who’s Mira Sorvino’s darling? Who keeps her grounded role after Oscar role? As I discovered during our conversation, it’s actually her seven year-old Chawla / Whippit cross whom she affectionately calls Deer. “He looks like a reindeer. That’s why his name is Deer. When his ears are up, he looks like a little fawn,” explains Mira. She found her “giant version of the Taco Bell dog” at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, when she was on a modeling job seven years ago. Mira wasn’t looking to adopt any more animals – she already owned cats, but she had agreed to help her friend pick out a kitten. At the ASPCA, she was distracted by the cries of one little puppy.
“I was thinking I could never deal with that,” Mira says. “Just out of curiosity, I looked toward the noises, and at the end of the row I saw this tiny little creature curled up in a doughnut, looking very sad. He had a small cut on his nose.” Within moments of holding him, her mind was made up. Mira was at the bank machine drawing the adoption fee and on her way to Central Park for a first walk.
One of Mira’s greatest talents is her chameleon-like ability to mimic a breadth of roles and voices, from a nineteenth-century Brazilian-born beauty (The Buccaneers), to a tarty blond stripper (Mighty Aphrodite), and she extends this talent for imitation with a loving “mimic” of Deer’s deep barking. Mira is adamant that despite being a “small big dog” Deer’s bark is mighty as well, and he is a great watchdog.
Deer has been on almost every set with the actress, usually as the set’s mascot. And a movie set can be a drama in itself. On one notable occasion, Deer’s disappearance from Mira’s trailer had her calling every pound and contacting The Dead Animals Service to locate her beloved Deer. “Someone entered the trailer to clean and Deer wasn’t expecting her. Because he was loose, he just jumped out of the trailer.” Luckily, Deer was found by a neighbor a few days later, and Mira was phoned to come retrieve him.
“Deer is a great companion, a real presence in my life. He is my teddy bear.” Leading men beware, the stage belongs to Mira and Deer.
By Melissa Curran