How Patina Miller, of Starz’s ‘Power’ Series, Spends Her Sundays

Patina Miller may play a fearless New York City drug queenpin inspired by 50 Cent’s mother on television, but for a long time, something scared her: having a child of her own.

“I thought maybe I wouldn’t be good at it,” said Ms. Miller, 40, who plays the indomitable Raquel Thomas on the crime drama “Power Book III: Raising Kanan.” (The fourth season premieres Friday on Starz.)

“I was always afraid of holding other people’s babies because I thought I’d break them,” she said.

But now that she is a mother — to a 7-year-old daughter, Emerson Harper Mars, with her husband, the venture capitalist David Mars — she couldn’t imagine her life any other way.

“Sundays are about being comfy, being with family,” said Ms. Miller, whose 15-year-old niece, Alanna Miller, also lives with her. She added, “It’s nice to sit and talk to each other without being on our phones.”

Ms. Miller was born in Pageland, S.C., and raised by a single mother who encouraged her love for gospel music. She has lived in New York since 2007, when she moved from South Carolina after college and subsequently landed her breakout role as the nightclub singer Deloris Van Cartier in the Broadway adaptation of “Sister Act.” She won a Tony Award in 2013 for her performance as a circus artist in the musical “Pippin.”

She has called the Upper West Side home for the past three years. Her family lives in a brownstone between Central Park and Riverside Park with their English bulldog, Maddie.