In Part 2 of 2 of TheYBF.com’s Advice From Married Women featurette, Baggage Claim star Paula Patton she dished the real issues that comes with a long term relationship.
Tell us about your character:
“Montana” is a really fun character to play. When I read the script I laughed out loud. I said I want to play this character but more importantly I wanted to be apart of a movie that I could see would be great. A great romantic comedy. Montana Moore is a young-ish woman that you meet at the beginning of the film and she thinks she’s found the man of her dreams. She thinks he’s going to ask her to marry him but she soon discovers he’s not so dreamy. She’s just gotten back from this trip to see him and she’s miserable and in walks her sister, played by the beautiful younger LaurenLondon, and she’s getting married in a month. She’s happy for her sister because she loves her but its also like…
Especially because her mother is very aggressive and the mother puts so much emphasis on the importance ofmarriage and that your not a lady unless you’re a wife. So you find a woman who’s at a real emotional place. She is desperate now. She says she’s not showing up at that wedding without a husband or at least a ring on this finger. With her two best friends played by Jill Scott and Adam Brody, who do a magnificent job in the film, they devise a planbecause they realize I wont be able to find a new man in a month unless he’s in jail, needs a green card or on the down low (laughs) so she has to go back in the past and revisit the ex-boyfriends to see maybe I was too picky, maybe I can do something differently. That’s where she’s compromising her self and she’s desperate.
You see all these different wardrobe changes to try and fit in these guys lives but something at the core of Montana won’t let her go all the way until she finds the real love. So it’s a very fun journey over this 30 day period among all these men that she visits and the insane things that happen to her along the way with what these guys do. It’s about a woman who realizes that she’s enough on her own and no longer has the need to please her family anymore and she says take me as I am whether you like it or not and I’m okay with me, alone. So I always think of this movie as having two happy endings. I’ll leave the rest as a surprise.
Who is your favorite male counterpart?
I hate picking favorites. I really love working with everybody I have to say this. Its a good thing when you have such a huge cast like this and have great actors coming to play everybody came and brought their A game. They all felt passionately about the movie and just brought it. Thank God for them. But I do have to point out that Taye Diggs does a magnificent job in this movie he is so freaking funny, you’ll see. He was very fun to play with. I love working with Derek Luke. Nobody has a bigger heart than this man but Djimon is amazing. Its so hard to pick!
How much of Paula Patton is in your character Montana Moore?
I always find something about myself in my character I think its important. Not that you don’t become other people. I need to find one piece of myself, if its small or big, thats like the character. I don’t judge the character. I can exaggerate and envelop from something thats true on the inside. There’s a lot of things I keep to myself, for personal reasons that I connect to her but I do connect a lot about wanting to please people, caring about what everyone else is thinking and the growth that it takes to be okay with yourself and say, ‘you know what? Look, this is who I am, take it or leave it’ and love yourself enough to persevere through life, take the hits as they come, but know that you’re doing your best, trying your best, thats all you can do. It’s still a work in progress. I’m a sensitive beast. But more and more as I get older I just try and not need approval from everyone else.
What advice would you give to single women looking for true love?
Don’t look for your true love. Don’t look for a man that’s going to marry you. That’s not going to do you any good. Once you get the pretty ring and the party, there is a marriage part that you have to think about. It’s more important for a woman who truly knows herself and enjoys her life alone and doesn’t complain about being alone and is spontaneous, which I no longer have because I have a child! I feel like when you enjoy your life and you love yourself people gravitate toward you and feel that you are confident and secure and that’s when all the men start to come or whatever partner you want. But to marry not because it looks good on paper but someone who loves you exactly the way you are and all your flaws in spite of them and is willing to ride or die with you.
At one point Montana ends up in a trash can to spy on her boyfriend. Have you ever gone to great lengths to see if your man is cheating?
Yes. (laughs) Listen, I’ve been married a long time and we’ve dated a long time. Have I checked up on my man? Absolutely! Have I hidden in bushes, have been caught and made a fool out of myself? Yes! Love makes you do crazy things. [SPOILER ALERT] Luckily, I didn’t find him with a pregnant woman. Luckily, I was wrong. But I have absolutely [spied].
