In 2012, Patton appeared in the short films "Awake" and "Pharmboy", the latter of which was directed by his longtime friend Lawrence Feeney. Mark Finguerra, the director of "Awake", was able to look past the potential typecasting of Patton's role in "Blue's Clues" to cast him in a darker role. Patton had impressed him in an audition for an earlier feature film. Finguerra called Patton a "complete professional [and a] tremendous actor", and enjoyable on set. He appeared in the soap opera "One Life to Live", in which he played, in a departure of his previous roles, "a very angry man". In 2014, he appeared in a small movie shot mostly in New Jersey, entitled "Lies I Told My Little Sister", directed by William Stribling and starring Lucy Walters.