Madam Secretary

Playing high-strung press co-ordinator Daisy Grant on political drama Madam Secretary (2014-current) isn’t all that much of a stretch for Patina Miller. Like her multi-talented TV character, the 31-year-old is a triple threat in reality: she sings, acts and dances.

Patina has been obsessed with 1

Whoopi Goldberg’s 1992 comedy movie Sister Act since she saw it at 14. And at 26, she was cast in the Broadway version, playing Whoopi’s troublemaker character Deloris Van Cartier! “If somebody said I’d be starring on Broadway in the musical Sister Act, I’d have said it’s a little far-fetched. That’ll never happen. But here I am,” she revealed.

She likes contemporary dancing 2

and even did trapeze stunts for her role in Broadway’s Pippin (2012-2013), but you’ll have to twist Patina’s arm to do ballet. “I’m pretty active at all times,” she adds. “I love a challenge, but I don’t necessarily love ballet.”

Patina graduated from Carnegie 3

Mellon University in South Carolina with a degree in musical theatre in 2006, on a full scholarship. It didn’t take her long to get hired – she was cast as reality TV producer Pam Henderson in soapie All My Children (1970-2011) just a year after moving to New York in 2007.

Fans of The Hunger Games movies 4

(2012-2015) know her as Commander Paylor in Mockingjay parts 1 and 2 (2014 and 2015) and she loved the process, saying that “it’s been really nice to work on such huge films”.

She managed to successfully juggle 5

work and a social life… with the help of technology. She used dating site eHarmony.com and got hitched to venture capitalist David Mars in 2014 after four years of dating.