In an exclusive conversation with ESSENCE, Patina Miller opened up about the evolution of Raquel “Raq” Thomas as Power Book III: Raising Kanan heads into its highly anticipated fourth season. With Kanan stepping further into independence, Miller spoke about a shifting mother-son dynamic rooted in both love and conflict.
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00:00Rob Markman So you spoke about, she's able to kind of
00:05keep a hand on him, you know, now.
00:07So I think Raquel has been, she's probably the most complex character on the show.
00:13Being a loving mother, as well as a ruthless queenpin.
00:17How do you, as an actress, how do you balance both sides of that?
00:20Mariah Carey Well, the most important part of this whole
00:25thing is being able to play Raquel.
00:28I think the easy part is playing the queenpin, right?
00:31Like getting to the danger, getting to all of the ferociousness.
00:36That's all easy stuff.
00:37I think the vulnerability and the love and all of that, I think that's what makes the
00:42character interesting and human and seeing such a powerful character be so flawed and
00:47so human is really important in this story.
00:51And for me, she needed to have layers.
00:54She needed to be so many different things, you know, loving and sexy and powerful, but
01:00then conniving and treacherous.
01:02And literally, someone have, people have called her the devil and other essential, you know
01:07what I mean?
01:08But throughout the through line of that is the love and working.
01:13So my balance of that is making sure as much as I'm giving over to all of the queenpin,
01:22whatever that is, making sure she's going into the love and that's finding love in all
01:28of the relationships that she has with her family, basically, for me.
01:33So that's how I, it's a juggling act, but it's, that's what I love to do is finding
01:38the soft moments because she doesn't get to be soft a lot.