‘Shining Vale’: Mira Sorvino Talks Horror Movies, ‘Old Country Superstitions’ Amid Ghostly Role

Shining Vale star Mira Sorvino plays a ghostly role in the new horror-comedy series, starring as Rosemary, a ghost who haunts the new home of Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear’s dysfunctional family. Recently the beloved actress opened up about how scary movies and her grandmother’s “old country superstitions” shaped her own views on the supernatural. During a press roundtable interview, PopCulture.com asked Sorvino about her stance on otherworldly apparitions, and she explained that being exposed to horror at a young age was one of the first things to have an impact on her association with spirits and specters. 

“I have always sort of been afraid of the supernatural,” Sorvino confessed. “It’s why when I was younger I couldn’t watch movies like The Omen or . The really occult-y kind of ones. Because I was afraid that if I gave any credence to the stuff being discussed in them that it would take hold of me. As a younger person, I was really afraid of that.” She then went on to cite a classic horror film that frightened her terribly as a child. “Also, very early on, a friend of mine who was much tougher than me, took me to see Scanners when I was 12 and I saw the bald heads exploding and I could not go to sleep for three months after that,” the actress revealed. “So, I just stopped watching horror for a really long time.”

Sorvino also shared that her family matriarch made a big impression on how she views the paranormal. “My grandmother was very, very intelligent and very, very wonderful but also had a lot of the old country superstitions alive and well in her daily life,” the actress said. “So, she would walk into a house and she would go, ‘It’s all clear. No ghosts here.’ And she talked to us about how she used to talk to her relatives who had passed on. They would come and visit her and sit around her bed at night. So through her i had this inauguration into the possibility of the reality of this stuff.”

Finally, Sorvino stated that she feels there is plenty of evidence for the existence of an unearthly plain because “too many people have had communications with ghosts or messages from the other side for me not to believe that it’s possible.” She admitted, “It just hasn’t really happened with me. I feel like I get signs? I get signs. I get signs from my dead loved ones. But they’re not ghosts.” Shining Vale airs Sunday nights on Starz and is available on the Starz app, as well.