LOS ANGELES — Mira Sorvino needed guarantees. The Oscar-winning actress knew the new AT&T Audience Network series “Condor” had potential as it was created using director Sydney Pollack’s 1975 thriller “Three Days of the Condor” as the inspiration. Sorvino’s big concern was she didn’t want to play a stereotypical upper level director of the CIA who shows no emotion and ends up being the bad guy.
It wasn’t until she saw the first few scripts that the 50-year-old New York native knew the character of Marty Frost is very unique. She’s playing a person of mystery in a world where everyone lies, spies and defies authority, and she has a rough, interesting, emotional past that makes her behave in unexpected ways.
“She’s a very complex and fascinating character to put your teeth into,” says Sorvino. “None of the characters in this series are cartoon good guys or bad guys. Even the good guys can flip to being bad guys in the service of survival or for a cause. No one is black or white. No one is exactly what you would expect. I was very grateful to have such a rich role to dive into.”
The line in the script that sealed the deal has her character saying that after a certain major event she “cried every day for two years.” Sorvino won’t reveal what that event was but does say that creating a character who would cry for two years is at the other end of the spectrum from the way she has seen female bosses in similar stories portrayed.
Sorvino is getting to play Frost as a person who is filled with emotions and feelings that motivate her in unusual directions. The inner struggle of the character gives Sorvino the kind of textures she looks for when selecting acting jobs.
Her choice of roles has been very different over the years, ranging from the light comedy of “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” to the biopic “Norma Jean & Marilyn,” where she took on the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe. She earned her Oscar playing an emotionally complicated prostitute in the Woody Allen film “Mighty Aphrodite.”
Sorvino was very deliberate during the early part of her career to take on roles that were different than anything she had done in the past. In hindsight, Sorvino’s not sure if looking for diversity was the right thing in picking roles or whether she should have figured out what was the one thing everyone liked seeing her do and take on more of those roles.
“Maybe I would have more potential bang for my buck in terms of what I put my time into, but that wasn’t who I was,” Sorvino says. “Now, it’s not so intentional because I have basically hit most of the keys on the piano. Now I am just looking for good material, good people.”
That role she’s taking on in “Condor” folds into the story of Joe Turner (Max Irons), a CIA analyst who finds a clue that shines new light on a failed biological attack at a football stadium. The evidence threatens Joe’s life along with everyone he cares about. When everyone else in his office is killed, Turner must go on the run in order to discover who’s behind this far-reaching conspiracy, and stop them from completing their deadly objective that threatens the lives of millions.
Another reason Sorvino was attracted to the project was she’s always been a fan of the spy genre. This one was especially exciting for her because she found it so intelligently written that it’s going to challenge even the most loyal fans of the genre to figure out what is happening.
“Plus, it’s fascinating. It’s topical. I think there is a whole thing about power broking in the hands of the very few. Behind the cloak of institutions like the CIA, FBI or higher up than that, people have agendas,” Sorvino says. “In this show there are many different kinds of agendas: patriotism, anti-Islam sentiment, a warped version of evangelical Christianity, personal gain, financial gain, revenge.
“There are so many people with so many reasons for the dastardly things they do. They are pulling the strings and it is almost like spy vs. spy. They all feel like they have good reasons for what they are doing but in the end, what they are doing is cataclysmic.”
The mysteries surrounding Sorvino’s character unfold very slowly in “Condor,” as she doesn’t become a major player until about midway through the 10-episode season. Even with that slow roll into the story, Sorvino’s convinced she would not be able to do half of what her character goes through if this had been a movie instead of a series. She describes working on a series rather than a film as having more opportunities to “have more operatic arias to sing rather than short pop songs.”
“Condor” also stars William Hurt, Leem Lubany, Brendan Fraser and Bob Balaban.
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