For more than 20 years, actor Benjamin Bratt's career has successfully spanned film and television. Bratt made his fourth appearance at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival as an actor (The Woodsman, Thumbsucker, Follow Me Home), and his second as a producer with the film La Mission.
Bratt's distinguished film career includes the critically acclaimed films Pinero, for which he was lauded for a striking, haunting, and "career-defining" performance of the poet-playwright-actor Miguel Pinero; Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which received five Academy AwardÆ nominations and a Screen Actor's Guild Award for Ensemble Cast; and The Woodsman, a festival and critical favorite starring Kevin Bacon.
Television audiences perhaps best recognize Bratt from his award-winning role of "Detective Rey Curtis" on NBC's long-running drama Law & Order. Throughout his tenure on the show, he and the cast won an Emmy for Best Drama Series, while he garnered an Emmy Award nomination for the best-supporting actor, won two ALMA Awards, a SAG Award nomination with his cast for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, and an NCLR Bravo Award nomination. Bratt starred in the hit A&E miniseries The Andromeda Strain, from Ridley and Tony Scott, based on the novel by Michael Crichton, which was the number one original movie or miniseries of 2008 and garnered seven Emmy nominations. He currently stars on the A&E drama series The Cleaner, for which he also serves as producer. He is currently in production on season two which will premiere in June 2009.
A veteran of over 25 films, Bratt's other work of note includes Curtis Hansen's The River Wild opposite Meryl Streep; Blood In, Blood Out for director Taylor Hackford; Clear and Present Danger starring Harrison Ford; Stephen Gaghan's directorial debut Abandon opposite Katie Holmes; the World War II drama The Great Raid for Miramax Films; the beloved comedy Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock, for which he won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award; and most recently the theatrical adaption of the acclaimed novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, co-starring Javier Bardem.
In La Mission, due in theaters Fall 2009, Bratt re-teams with his writer/director/producer brother, Peter Bratt (Follow Me Home) to star in and produce a story which recalls the culture, people, and beliefs of their childhood in the Mission district of San Francisco. In bringing "Che" to life, Bratt portrays a man of proud conviction, frightening intolerance, hard-earned respect, and love. Throughout his inspiring performance, he delivers to audiences a challenging character with depth and complexity; a character who is sure to define Bratt's accomplished resume for years to come.
Benjamin and Peter Bratt have recently joined with producer Alpita Patel to form 5 Stick Films, a production company geared towards film of conscience, with an aim towards telling stories with passion, vision, and personal reflection. La Mission is the first film from this emerging endeavor.
Bratt is married to actress Talisa Soto Bratt. They reside in Los Angeles with their two children.
