Paula Patton

Paula Patton was the daughter of Joyce (Vanraden), and Charles Patton. Her father is African American and her mother is caucasian. She has German, English, Dutch and English roots. Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing old and she was a fan of movies in her early childhood. Her mother, too, who enjoyed good films, was a schoolteacher, as was her father, an attorney. Paula admits that she would hide from her mother by pretending to be someone else as when she was a kid. It's not surprising that she took part in Hamilton Magnet Arts High School's high school plays. Her favorite character was "Abigail" from "The Crucible". After finishing the University of Southern California's summer camp, she studied film and was offered a three-month assignment to create documentaries for PBS. Then she was employed as a production assistant for television documentaries as well as Howie Mandel's talk-show. After a few months she was hired to produce documentary segments on Medical Diaries 2000 on Discovery Health Channel. Paula claims that she enjoyed what she was doing however her goals was the same as when she was a child, so she began taking acting classes and changed gears to become an actor. She was almost immediately successful with her roles, including major ones in Hitch (2005), Idlewild (2006) and Idlewild (2006), as well as the leading female character in Deja Vu (2006) opposite Denzel.