Paula Patton On Her Physical And Mental Transformation

In the male-dominated game-to-movie world, how did she shape up for Warcraft?

Game changing

This movie changed my life, so I have a soft spot for it. I have to give Duncan Jones so much credit, and the hundreds of people behind the scenes who put so much care and passion into this. It was a blessing to play Garona – she goes through a great transition. I was scared to death when I got this part, and obviously excited.

Facing fears

Without question my character helped me during a difficult time, to really jump into her. So the training, the time, the makeup, the wigs, the tusks, they were all worth it. When I got into it, I really felt like the character – especially after all the training, to wear the costume and especially to put the tusks in.

Preparing the right way

There’s so much that has to go into a character mentally. With this, all the information I needed was a little tougher, because I don’t know any half-orcs. But with this, I started a different way, in that the physical aspects of preparation informed the mental and heart and soul.

Getting physical

I had to put on quite a lot of muscle, so there was weight training – I had to look right aesthetically. I drank and consumed a lot of protein, and the workouts were crazy. Some days you would question yourself, but the more times you got past the challenges the stronger I got and they really helped me find the warrior in the character. She definitely gave me strength.

Training specifics

The training was two and a half hours a day, six days a week. It was a lot. Then nearer to the shoot and during the shoot there was sword training, knife training, lots of stick training, wire-work – I wanted to do as much in camera as possible. There was even horse-riding to master, which was wild. I’d never done that before.

Finding a passion

There was a lot of boxing and kickboxing mixed with weight training. I really got into boxing and kickboxing. Pad work, shadowboxing, all of it. With the diet it was a lot of egg whites, turkey, chicken, spinach, lettuce, salmon… organic whole foods. It all came together for me.

Issue 36 page 44

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