Paula Patton: A mother on the clock
>> “Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be an actress,” Paula Patton said. “I went to a performing arts high school and did school plays and stuff like that, but then I veered off course.”
Patton spent the next 10 years studying filmmaking at the University of Southern California, learning the ropes as a production assistant and creating documentaries for PBS. She didn’t get back into acting until she was 27 when she took her first real acting class.
“Acting is this amazing game of make-believe, which was my favourite thing to do as a child,” Patton said.
“To be able to play make-believe as a job, as an adult, is amazing.
“There have been times when I’ve been perhaps disappointed because you naturally want more, and then you grow older. Now I look at everything as a gift, and I think the idea is that you just have to take these illusions out of your head and find the beauty in what’s real and what’s really happening.
“That comes with its challenges, but I choose not to focus on the negative bits and just relish in what joy it really brings me.”
At 41 Patton has accrued nearly two dozen film and television credits that have allowed audiences to witness her natural dexterity with action, drama and romantic comedy alike. Among her most memorable projects are Hitch (2005), Dejà Vu (2006), Precious (2009), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), 2 Guns (2013) and The Perfect Match (2016), the last of which she also co-produced.
Up next f or Patton is Somewhere Between, a 10-episode limited series that will premiere tomorrow on ABC. The story zeroes in on Laura Price (Patton), a San Francisco news producer who is covering the hunt for a serial killer. Then her eightyear-old daughter (Aria Birch) is murdered — but Price finds herself mysteriously given a reset button, reliving the week before the crime. Can she change fate?
It’s not hard for Patton to understand this character because she is the mother of seven-year-old Julian, her son with ex-husband Robin Thicke.
“Laura, like every parent, is protective, but she might be overly protective based on the childhood she had,” Patton said, speaking by telephone from a studio in Burbank, California, where she was re-recording dialogue for Somewhere Between.
“In many ways she’s wearing a bit of a mask and trying very hard to be something she thinks she should be, and, when she experiences this great tragedy and then has this new chance, after getting back eight days, you see the animalistic nature of Laura.
“She essentially becomes the mama bear, and the question is, ‘What would you do to save your child’s life?’ I think it’s in these moments, when your back’s against the wall, that your true character comes out. You will see a person who is probably far more violent, vengeful, loving, all in one.
“I don’t know if it’s a myth or true that, if your child was trapped under a car, somehow you’d find that strength to pick that car up, but Laura believes that.
“Then there’s a bit of craziness to her as well because of this unreal thing that’s happened that’s given her these eight days and sent her on this mad dash.”
As noted, Somewhere Between is a limited series. Patton described it as a 10-hour, 10-part movie with a beginning, a middle and an end.
“By the end of Episode 10, it will be resolved,” she said, “and the audience, hopefully, they’ll feel satisfied. I think they really will be. And what Laura goes through is a one-off — she only gets to go back once. So it’s not Groundhog Day, where you’re experiencing something over and over and over again.”
In addition to Somewhere Between, Patton has wrapped Traffik, a thriller in which she plays a journalist who’s kidnapped after delving too deeply into the world of sex trafficking. The film, which co-stars Laz Alonso, Omar Epps and Roselyn Sanchez, also marks her second go-round as a producer after The Perfect Match.
“Producing … it’s sort of like Somewhere Between in that we have to create our own destiny and you can change your fate,” Patton said. “Really, in truth, Traffik is more as a creative producer than anything I’ve done. This was something that I was truly involved in all aspects.
“That’s something that I wanted to do very much. I love movies. I always have — I went to USC Film School, that’s where I graduated from. I thought at one time I would be a director. I worked as a production assistant and, when I was a PA, I could barely get to set to see anything.
“Then, as an actor, you’re there and you get to witness the workings of a great director and crew and learn so much.
“There are stories you want to tell and you want to bring to life, and Traffik is the first of it for me. My fledgling company is Third Eye Productions, and the idea is that we’ll find material and make it come to fruition, hopefully not just for myself, but for other actors as well.”
Once Traffik reaches the finished product stage, Patton hopes to take it to film festivals, with the ultimate goal of a theatrical release. Otherwise, though she’s currently attached to two other independent films, Audrey’s Run and Thirty Eight, neither is quite ready to roll — and, as a result and at least for the moment, Patton has got the summer free.
A free summer means more time with her son. It also means more time in the public eye because the break-up between Patton and Thicke, as well as their subsequent custody issues, have become regular tabloid fodder.
The actress has handled it all with notable grace, but she acknowledged that there’s a learning curve involved in accepting that surreal element of showbusiness whereby people she doesn’t know are fascinated by the intimate details of her life.
“It’s very challenging,” Patton admitted. “I think, at the beginning, it was off-putting and scary to me. It sometimes left me feeling like you’re a bit beyond shy — you’re reluctant to go out and such. Then, I don’t know how, just through life’s challenges, you make peace with things and you realise that’s just what comes with it.
“Anonymity is an amazing thing. It’s more of a gift than people realise, being able to walk the streets and have nobody care or notice. In truth, I feel like I live a lot of my life in that way, maybe because I’m ignorant to it or choose to have a blind eye.
“Really, it’s always about the energy you put into something. If you hate it, it’s going to hate you back. I’ve decided to embrace it and just go ‘It’s a part of the deal’ and make peace with it. If you’re in a car accident, they say you’re supposed to go with the movement of the car and not resist it. I try to do that in my life.”