With a wide age gap between Vera and Taissa Farmiga, it’s easy to presume that the two are mother and daughter when juxtaposed against one another — as many fans have. But despite the 21-year age difference, Vera and Taissa are actually sisters! We think it’s really cool to have such a generational difference between siblings, but we also understand why fans might believe they were mother and daughter to begin with.
At several points in their careers, however, the two sisters have inadvertently exacerbated the mother/daughter theory through media appearances. In “Higher Ground,” Vera’s directorial and Taissa’s acting debut, the elder Farmiga played the lead role of Corinne Walker while casting Taissa to play a younger version of her. And though they didn’t play mother and daughter in the film, it was more “The Many Saints of Newark” — where son Michael Gandolfini plays Tony Soprano — the role initially made famous by his late father, James Gandolfini, in “The Sopranos.”
In a more direct example, Vera once referred to Taissa as “my surrogate child” and stated that “I like to think I’ve parented her in a way, too” (via Parade). Taissa even addressed people’s uncertainty in a 2011 interview with Teen Vogue, stating “When I was growing up, people would always confuse me for Vera’s daughter.”