Paula Patton

Paula Patton is the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden), Patton, and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother who is caucasian is of German, English, and Dutch heritage. Her family lived just next to the 20th Century Fox lot as she grew older, and she was a huge film buff since the beginning of her life. Her mother was a teacher while her father worked as an attorney. Paula claims that she used to escape from her mother by pretending to be someone else as an infant. It's not a surprise that she took part in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School's plays for high school students. Her favorite character was that of "Abigail" in "The Crucible". After graduating from the University of Southern California's summer program she pursued film studies and was then given a 3 month assignment to create documentaries for PBS. This led to her being employed as a production assistant for documentary films on TV, as well as on Howie Mandel's talk show. In the following time she was able create documentary segments for Medical Diaries 2000 on Discovery Health Channel. Paula claims she loves what she is doing but her ambition was the same. She took acting classes and changed gears to become a performer. She was almost immediately successful and was featured in major roles in Hitch (2005), Idlewild (2006), as well as the lead female character in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel.