32-year old Paula Patton is making quite a splash in Hollywood these days. Apart from playing an ambitious journalist who has an impact on the life of Kevin Costner in the wry comedy Swing Vote, the actress will also be seen opposite Kiefer Sutherland in the horror film Mirrors, due out later this year.

Her family lived across the street from the 20th Century Fox lot when she was growing up and she was a fan of films from her earliest years. Her mother, who also appreciated good films, was a schoolteacher, and her father was a lawyer. Paula claims that as a girl she would escape by “pretending to be someone else” so it was not a surprise that she acted in high school plays at Hamilton Magnet Arts High School. Her favorite role was that of “Abigail” in The Crucible.

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Just when it’s tough out there for a female to get quality roles, Paula Patton has manage to score not just one, but two good roles this August, The first of them is a role opposite Kevin Costner in Swing Vote.

Swing Vote, which opens on August 1st, deals with the story of an election set somewhere in the near future where Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner), a lovable loser, who is coasting through a life and has not a political thought in his head, is thrust into an improbable dilemma. In response, he is coaxed on by his 12-year-old daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) to take more of a serious approach to life. Molly runs the household and sees an opportunity on election day to energize her father. The election is a “dead heat” with the sole deciding ballot in the hands of a mystified Bud, who is being wooed by candidates from both sides.

What attracted you to this role?

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