The Flash's Candice Patton Talks Romance, Breaking Barriers, and the Daunting Task of Fame
Glamour: What moments really shaped your career?
Candice Patton: I remember being interested in theater when I was in school, but I wasn't always engaged in making it a career. I was a cheerleader in Texas, but I tore my ACL, so I was out for the rest of the season. That's when I started putting more of my passion into theater. In college, CBS' Young and the Restless did a nationwide casting search for a new male and female to join the show. They came to SMU and ended up picking me. So after I finished, the casting director said, "We'd love for you to stay on the show, what do you think?" I said I wanted to go back to school and finish my degree, but I'd contact her when I came back to LA. As soon as I graduated, I moved to LA and got in touch with her. She was teaching an acting class, and that's how it started.
Glamour: Were you able to get back on Young and the Restless then?
Candice: No, because she left the show by then. I took her classes and met some actor friends, and one of them took me in to meet the manager that reps Taraji P. Henson, Halle Berry, and others. Basically, great leading ladies, especially African-American leading ladies. She walked me into his office and said, "You need to sign this girl, she's going to be something." And he did. I'm still with him today, and it's those people that have really shaped my career out here.
Glamour: David Rapaport, the casting director for the CW, said that for the part of Iris West, they originally tested Scream Queens' Keke Palmer and Ciara Renee, who they eventually cast as Kendra Saunders in DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Did you know that?
Candice: I knew that after the fact. There was one audition I went in for and Jordin Sparks was in the waiting room, and I thought, "What am I doing here?!" It was a time where I had tested for so many roles. I had gone in for How to Get Away With Murder and that didn't go, and you just get to the point where you kind of burn out and don't know if you can hear no anymore. Finally, The Flash just stuck.
Glamour: What was your audition for The Flash like?
Candice: The first time I did it, I felt like I bombed. There was a line about Channing Tatum, and I couldn't remember his name to save my life. I just kept [messing it up], so I hope I'm in a movie one day with Channing! I will never forget his name! But yeah, I thought it was dead in the water, and it just happened that it was so early in the casting process, so a month or two later they brought me back in to read with Grant and do a chemistry read with him. Within two days, I booked it. It was kind of crazy.
