Patina Miller

Patina Renea Miller, born November 6, 1984, in Pageland, South Carolina, is an American actress and singer whose career spans Broadway, film, and television. Raised in a single-parent household, she was introduced to music through gospel choir at her local church. She attended the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities before earning a degree in musical theatre from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. In 2005, while still building her early career, Miller was among three finalists considered for the role of Effie White in the film Dreamgirls, competing alongside Capathia Jenkins and Jennifer Hudson. In 2007, she appeared in 30 episodes of the daytime soap opera All My Children, playing Pam Henderson. She also performed in a Central Park production of Hair in the summer of 2008 and appeared in Romantic Poetry at the Manhattan Theatre Club that fall.

Miller's professional breakthrough came when she was cast as Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act, a role she had understudied for six months during an earlier domestic run before being selected following a year-long international search. The London production opened on June 2, 2009, at the London Palladium, earning Miller a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical as well as the WhatsOnStage Theatregoers Choice Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She remained with the production until it closed on October 30, 2010. Miller then reprised the role for the Broadway production, which began performances on March 24, 2011, at the Broadway Theatre and officially opened on April 20, 2011, marking her Broadway debut. For that performance she received a Theatre World Award and nominations for the Tony Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama League Award, and the Drama Desk Award, all in the leading actress category. She played her final performance with the Broadway company on March 18, 2012. Earlier that same year, in February 2011, she had also starred as Linda in the City Center Encores! production of Lost in the Stars.

Miller next took on the role of the Leading Player in the American Repertory Theater production of Pippin, which ran from December 2012 through January 2013, before reprising the role in the Broadway revival at the Music Box Theatre. That production began performances on March 23, 2013, and officially opened on April 25, 2013. Her performance earned her the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical at the 67th Tony Awards. Miller returned to Broadway in 2022 to play the Witch in the revival of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods at the St. James Theatre, a role she had previously performed in the 2019 Hollywood Bowl production of the same show.

Beyond Broadway, Miller appeared as Commander Paylor in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 in 2014 and Part 2 in 2015. In 2014 she was also cast as Daisy Grant, press coordinator to the Secretary of State, in the CBS political drama Madam Secretary, which premiered on September 21, 2014. She appeared in the PBS series Mercy Street in 2017. Beginning in 2021, Miller has starred as Raquel Thomas in the Starz drama Power Book III: Raising Kanan, a performance that earned her nominations from the Black Reel Awards and the NAACP Image Awards and recognition from the AAFCA TV Honors. Since 2024, she has voiced the character Sera in the adult animated musical series Hazbin Hotel, contributing to both the original soundtrack and the Season Two soundtrack. In 2014, she performed a concert at Lincoln Center that was subsequently broadcast on PBS as Patina Miller in Concert.

On June 14, 2014, Miller married venture capitalist David Mars in New York City. The ceremony was officiated by her mother, Robin Burch, a Baptist minister. Their daughter, Emerson Harper, was born on August 9, 2017, in New York City. In 2023, Miller sang the national anthem at the start of the New York City Marathon in Staten Island and went on to complete the race in four hours.