Paula Patton

Paula Patton is the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden) Patton and Charles Patton. Her father is African-American . her mother is caucasian is of German, English, and Dutch roots. As a child and her family lived next to the 20th Century Fox lot. She was a fervent movie enthusiast from childhood. Her mother, also enjoyed good films, was a schoolteacher, and her father was a lawyer. Paula says that as a girl she would escape from the world by "pretending to be someone else" which is why it came as an unsurprising that she performed in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her favorite character was "Abigail" from "The Crucible". She continued her studies at University of Southern California, where she completed a course in film. The program was a success, and she was awarded a three-month assignment to produce documentaries for PBS. This led to her working as a production assistant for TV documentariesand on Howie Mandel's talk show. In the following time she was able make documentary segments for Medical Diaries 2000 on Discovery Health Channel. Paula says she loves her work, but she dreams of becoming an actor. She was almost immediately successful and within three years, she was playing part in two major feature films: Hitch (2005) and Idlewild (2006) and was the female lead in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel Washington.