Patricia Heaton cites root of Hollywood success: ‘God had a hand’

Emmy-award winning actress Patricia Heaton — who plays the beloved but beleaguered wife on both hit series’ “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Middle” — said without God, she wouldn’t have seen so much career success.

“I came to L.A. when I was 32,” she said, giving remarks about her new comedy “Mom’s Night Out” to reporters, NewsBusters reported. “For a woman, that’s like 100,000 in dog years. I had no agent or manager. The fact that I’m sitting here talking to you all, and I’ve had a couple of great shows … God had a hand in opening these doors. It just doesn’t happen [otherwise].”

Despite her career successes, Ms. Heaton said she sometimes has a “wave” of doubt that seeps in, where she asks herself, “Am I being passed over?” But she admitted she has no hard evidence that the movie industry has discriminated against her because of her Christian beliefs, NewsBusters reported.

And, she told reporters, she knows that God always has her back — something that was driven home when she first arrived in Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and sidestepped into a short church mission trip to a Mexican orphanage.

“When I came back from there, I had this spiritual epiphany,” Ms. Heaton said, NewsBusters reported. “[It was that] I don’t need to be an actor. I could work at that orphanage for the rest of my life … whichever direction [God] is going to take me, I’ll go. From that point on, it just started flowing.”