Paula Patton savors her success and husband's

Welcome to Paula Patton’s moment. At 37, with almost a decade in the acting game behind her, Patton this summer played the female lead in 2 Guns alongside Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, and she headlines the upcoming romantic comedy Baggage Claim.

“It’s really exciting,” Patton says in her trademark raspy voice. “I’m thrilled with it. With movies, of course, you want to fill seats and you want people to come and watch the movie, but Baggage Claim (opening on Friday) was such a labor of love and a true passion project for me. If it did well, it’d be exciting for those reasons.

“I just feel lucky that I’m getting to do what I love, that I have some choices,” she says. “I never thought that this could happen for me as an actress, especially because I started so late."

Written and directed by David Talbert from his novel, Baggage Claim casts Patton as Montana Moore, a woman determined to get engaged before her younger sister’s wedding. Montana, a flight attendant, leverages her job and contacts to arrange supposedly coincidental encounters with several ex-boyfriends, hoping that one of them will turn out to be the Mr. Right who somehow slipped away.

“I read this script a few years ago,” Patton says. “I read it, and I laughed out loud, and then I made my husband (singer Robin Thicke) and my best friend read it out loud, to basically do our own table read. I was like ‘This has everything. I have to have this role.'"

Patton shares screen time in the film with co-stars Taye Diggs, Djimon Hounsou, Boris Kodjoe and Trey Songz.

Patton entered the acting business late in the game. She had dreamed of performing while in grade school and attended a performing-arts high school, but for several years she pursued behind-the-scenes work. She studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, made documentaries for PBS and toiled as a film production assistant. It wasn’t until she turned 27 that she enrolled in an acting class.

“It took me a little while to have that moment when I said, ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks. I know my parents paid for film school. I know I live in L.A., and it’s a cliche to want to be an actress, but who cares? This is my life,'" Patton says. “So I said: ‘Screw it. Let’s give it a shot.'"

Once she embraced the idea, though, Patton’s career moved swiftly. Her first notable role was a small part in the Will Smith comedy Hitch (2005), which led to progressively bigger parts.

Meanwhile, her husband’s singing career has been erupting. When the two married in 2005, he had achieved modest success, but the monster hit Blurred Lines took him to the top of the charts this year. The ensuing spotlight glare has had its drawbacks — Thicke was vamped by Miley Cyrus during her controversial, sexually charged performance at the Video Music Awards — but Patton isn’t complaining.

“It’s amazing, unreal,” she says. “We have moments when we put the baby to bed, we’re in our kitchen and we’re like ‘Can you believe it? Can you believe this is real?'"

Now comes the hard part: riding the wave as well and as long as possible.

“We understand that there are peaks and valleys in this business, and that one day you’re up and the next day you’re down.”