Paula Patton says her role as successful entertainment lawyer Daniella Hernandez on the BET+ drama series Sacrifice was a rare opportunity to boss up.
“[I’ve] never had a character like Daniella come into my life, because she’s just a boss,” Patton tells ABC Audio. “She’s this fierce, ferocious human that just sets her sights on her goals and accomplishes them and manipulates to make things happen. When…there’s a knot that seems impossible to undo, and she figures out how to undo it.”
Aside from the character’s strong personality, Patton says she was also drawn to Daniella’s complexity and her unbelievable resilience when defending her not-so-honest clients.
“Daniella is [also] that…scared little girl, who has suffered a lot. Who feels abandoned [after]…her parents have died,” Patton explains. “She has just recently gotten sober. She had an addiction to alcohol. And now that she’s sober, she’s looking at her life going, ‘Am I willing to sacrifice my soul to do the things I’m doing?'”
While the dangers of the music business often present a moral dilemma for her character, Patton says it’s Daniella’s desire to rise above her fractured past that she finds most admirable.
“She’s on a journey of healing and self-discovery,” Patton shares. “And that I found so compelling and interesting to play.”
“So that was one of the big reasons. That, and the clothes,” she adds.
Sacrifice, also starring Erica Ash, Willie Taylor and Veronika Bozeman, is now available to stream on BET+.
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