Paula Patton stepped on the scene in the film Hitch. Since then she has shared the screen as a leading lady to Denzel Washington (Déjà vu) and now opposite Kiefer Sutherland for the anticipated horror flick Mirrors. However, at the end of the day Paula Patton is just a girl on the rise who thinks that she is living a dream and often has to pinch herself to remind her that “it’s all happening!”

Black Life sat down with the actress and wife of musician Robin Thicke to find out what lies beneath the talent and the beauty.


BLACK LIFE: At the end of the day, who is Paula Patton?

Paula Patton: Oh my God! I have no idea. I’m a person who’s learning as I go trying to be the best person I can be and trying not to beat myself up too badly about it. I’m learning about myself…I’m going through a little bit of growing pains becoming an adult and just seeing what the world has to offer.

BLACK LIFE: That’s so funny, I was going to ask you if you watched Growing Pains growing up…

Paula Patton: Whoa, I walked right into that one! Yes, I did watch it growing up. I had a crush on Kirk Cameron.

BLACK LIFE: Kirk played Alan Thicke’s son on the show and how ironic that in real life you’d marry Alan Thicke’s true son Robin Thicke…was that serendipitous?

Paula Patton: I was over my crush on Kirk by then! When I met Robin I was 15 and he was 14. We met at an all ages night club dance during the summer.

BLACK LIFE: Was it love at first sight?

Paula Patton: It was crush at first sight and we danced--he was a good dancer (which was hilarious). We kept in contact over the phone [but] he was only my boyfriend for a little while, then we broke up and got back together and have been together ever since.


BLACK LIFE: I’m going to back up because I wasn’t planning on going there so early; let’s talk about your start in the business. I hear you were a filmmaker.

Paula Patton: Yes! During my senior year I entered the USC Film School Summer Program and that’s where I got to make a few short films. I really loved it at the time and thought that’s what I wanted to do—which led me to a show called The Ride which was about 4 young filmmakers traveling throughout the country to document other young people throughout America. I was supposed to attend Berkeley in the Fall but they waived my enrollment and I ended up at USC Film School and graduated. By this point I realized I didn’t want to be behind the camera anymore.

I remember sitting at my desk trying to write a screenplay and I said ‘you’ve got to stop lying to yourself’ [because] I didn’t have a passion for it, so I asked myself "What did I want to do since I was a little girl?" Because ultimately what you want to do as a child is what you should do as an adult…so I said acting! I told myself if I go to acting class and I get psyched I’ll know if it’s meant to be [so] I started taking classes and I loved it and I knew that I found that thing that I was willing to sacrifice for. I found that shoe that fit and that was a really great feeling for me…a really wonderful moment in my life to know what I wanted to do.

BLACK LIFE: What has the ride been like for you since Hitch?

Paula Patton: Unreal! I could never have thought that this could be happening right now. When I got Hitch I was so excited and I remember going to the audition for Idlewild thinking ‘I’m never gonna get this role’ because the Director [Bryan Barber] was seeing every black actor in Hollywood big or small and I thought ‘well maybe they’ll think of me for a small role’, so I just went in there and had fun with it. It was a bit of a shock when I got the call back. It was an amazing “dream come true” moment and it still feels that way. There are times when I’ll be on set and I’ll just look at the cameras, the lights, my costume or what have you and I just can’t believe that it’s all happening to me.

BLACK LIFE: As a new actor, how do you prepare to work with someone like Denzel or Kiefer Sutherland?

Paula Patton: You can’t prepare to work with them, you just try to do your homework so you can come in and play ball with them. Denzel was just such an incredible force that I just tried to sit back, watch and learn. Hopefully not get in the way.


BLACK LIFE: How do you prepare for a horror film?

Paula Patton: I would never rehearse how I was going to scream or act because I wanted it to be as organic as possible and keep myself in that edge space all day long. Sometimes I’d sit in the corner with my ipod and listen to haunting music or music that would put me in a certain mood and then come to the set and stay in that moment, throw it out as much as I could and not expect what’s going to happen, so that when you do it in reality you’re really there. You have to play tricks with your mind.

BLACK LIFE: Do you find that being in a horror film makes you tap into your fears or overcome them?

Paula Patton: It can help you overcome them because it’s all your worst fears coming to realization and then you have to tackle them and say to yourself ‘wow, I can handle it.” I remember I was filming a TV pilot for a show that didn’t get picked up which was about a homicide detective and when doing research for the role we looked at a lot of crime scene photos and awful gruesome killings and I remember thinking ‘oh, I can’t’; I didn’t think I could look at it [but] once I had and got into my character it was how I overcame my fear of those things. Listen, I’m a person that sleeps with all the lights on…so my imagination is great.

BLACK LIFE: Tell me about your character in Mirrors:

Paula Patton: I play Amy Carson. Kiefer Sutherland is my estranged husband in the film and has been put on probation for quite sometime, basically kicked off the force for accidentally killing an undercover police officer and he’s going through some personal problems as well, so I play the wife trying to juggle it all (work, children)…he tries to get a job and the only job he can get is at this abandoned department store. He starts telling her that he’s seeing things in mirrors and things go from bad to worse.


BLACK LIFE: What’s next for you?

Paula Patton: A movie with director Lee Daniels called PUSH which is based on a novel by the same name.

Mirrors is currently in theaters.

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