(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Y es, Mira Sorvino rents. Cheap. And now she’s losing her prewar, rent-stabilized one-bedroom on the Upper West Side near Central Park. She got in thirteen years ago while shooting Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, which earned her an Oscar. She laments, “My landlords are selling the building, and they want the units cleared so they can turn it into a luxury rental, even though it’s a one-bedroom. I mean, it’s 600 square feet! No great digs, but I loved it and now it’s probably going to go for $4,000 a month.” What’s to blame? Sorvino’s movie-star lifestyle, which allows her landlord to argue that Sorvino, who lives with her husband, actor Christopher Backus, and their two children, is not a full-time resident and that the apartment is not her primary residence. “You go where the work is,” she says. “Last year I worked on two projects in Canada and one in Russia. You’re not in New York for six months, and they’re like, ‘You’re outta here!’ I’m a little bitter! Can you tell?”

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Jada Yuan
• Table of Contents: Oct 23, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!