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Actor talks about the extraordinary life of his mother and how she came to be a part of the takeover of Alcatraz. (1:50)
 

Full Interview. (11:07)
 

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Tavis: Benjamin Bratt has enjoyed success in film and television, including, of course, an Emmy nomination for his work on "Law & Order." His latest project is called "The Cleaner," which recently debuted on the A&E network. The show airs Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m. Here now, a scene from "The Cleaner."

[Clip]

Tavis: So that clip pretty much explains that you used to be a junkie.

Benjamin Bratt: Straight up. (Laughter) Hardcore junkie.

Tavis: If you're clean now, you used to be a junkie.

Bratt: That's right, and clearly one who was bad enough that his family still suspects him of potentially being one.

Tavis: Nice to see you, man.

Bratt: You too, thanks for having me.

Tavis: My pleasure. So the character you play is William Banks.

Bratt: Yeah, I play a guy named William Banks, who's actually based on a real guy named Warren Boyd, who does this for a living. The back story on who William Banks is is he's a former junkie who, really at the bottom of the well, really, when his daughter was being born in the hospital, he had that moment of self-recognition that he needed to change his life.

And so he made a pact with God. He said, "Look, if you get me through this hard time, I will devote my life to helping other addicts - people just like myself." And that's essentially what he did. That was about 15 years ago, and became the premise for the show.

Tavis: For those who haven't seen it yet, how does that actually work on the screen? That is to say, how does a story develop where he is running around - is he just running the streets, trying to find folk who are junkies? How does it work as a storyline?

Bratt: Well, it works in a similarly mysterious way, as it does in real life. Warren Boyd, the guy that the show is based upon, he has a pretty heavy-duty past himself. A former heroin junkie himself, he's done some time. And so the way he operates is kind of a take-no-prisoners, by any means necessary approach to getting the job done.

And so simply by his exploits he's become quite popular, especially in this town, amongst celebrity clientele and whatnot.

Tavis: He has an extreme way of doing things.

Bratt: He does, so people reach out to him. But they understand that the way he operates might not necessarily be within the limitations of the law, and so we take that premise and we dramatize it and we expound on it a little bit and get a little more creative with it, but essentially we're trying to mimic what he does.

Tavis: I was trying to - and I'll give you a chance to do it for me - but I was trying, at least, to juxtapose how one like you feels. I look back at your earlier work when you were really just getting started, and as is the case, as you certainly well know, with so many actors of color, you end up doing roles in the beginning that you wish you didn't have to do.

Bratt: Right.

Tavis: You play characters you wish you didn't have to play.

Bratt: Right.

Tavis: Then you become - if you're fortunate, if you're blessed - a star like Benjamin Bratt, (laughter) and you end up playing a guy -

Bratt: You hear that, Mom? (Laughter) You hear that?

Tavis: You end up playing a guy who used to be a junkie, but I was trying to juxtapose in my mind what you have made of this journey that you have been on, where you started - I've read pieces where you've complained about having to do stuff early in the career that wasn't exciting for you altogether, but now you're playing a guy who actually is helping people who came out of that kind of past. Does that make sense?

Bratt: It's interesting, because when I first started out as an actor, I studied first so I've got a graduate degree. And my first exposure to acting, it wasn't really dictated by a color bias, really. And especially where I went to graduate school, they had a policy of blind casting. So one professional production of "A Christmas Carol," Tiny Tim was an Asian boy and his father was White and his mother was Black - no one said anything.

And so throughout my college profession, my graduate school career, in plays, whether it was Shakespeare or Greek tragedies or contemporary dramas, my skin color wasn't an issue.

This was back in the mid-eighties, so when I've made it down to this town, it was rather shocking to me just how quickly people want to pigeonhole you. And at that time, things were a lot different than now, and so there were distinct limitations that were put upon actors like myself starting out, where the only roles on offer, really, were those of drug dealers or gang-bangers.

So it is interesting now to ponder, in this day and age now, some 20 years later, that it's not even an issue, it's not even a question anymore. And it's kind of nice. I never really thought about it the way you articulated it, but to be in a place where I am the former bad boy now doing good.

Tavis: Does that in any way to you speak to the fact that Hollywood is making progress, if even at a snail's pace?

Bratt: I think so. I think the good news is that - and just like in real life, like it is always, Hollywood always takes - it's always maybe a few years behind what's really going on in American society. Just as the potential for someone like a Tiger Woods or a Barack Obama or anyone else who comes from a cultural background not from the dominant culture becomes more illuminated on a public platform, Hollywood catches up and begins to reflect that too in the jobs that they create and the products they put out.

So it's just a matter of time. I think it's going to get better, certainly. I think we have a ways to go. But what I've come to recognize for myself and having the good fortune of having a brother who's a writer and a producer and a director is that to tell the stories that I want to tell that have some kind of cultural resonance for me, that have some kind of universal themes that everyone can relate to, we have to take that on ourselves, because no one's going to do it for me.

Tavis: So to your point now, when you get a role like this one where you're playing Mr. Banks in this series, "The Cleaner," even though the role is not - even though the purpose of the series is not to make statements or pronouncements on a cultural level, as the star of the series do you find yourself from time to time saying to the writers, saying to the producers, "Well, if we change this here, if we change this there," and it's your way of being able to say things that you want to say?

Bratt: What's actually interesting on the show is that I would argue that we probably have one of the most ethnically diverse ensemble casts on television. Among the team of people that work with William Banks, the character I play, there is an African American, there is an Asian-American, there is myself, and what I find somewhat ironic and something I hope that will change a little bit as we go forward is that the people so far we've dealt with, the people who suffer from addiction that we've been helping have by and large been people from the White community, and typically wealthy backgrounds.

We know that in real life that's not really the case, and so what we have here is a real potential to explore the true grit and hardcore nature of this lifestyle, and how dramatic the fallout from this kind of lifestyle choice can be if you're a drug addict. And that's what I'm interested in exploring, and that for me is where the show really lives and breathes.

The trip is that I really take as my first responsibility to be a part of a collective of artists who have the shared agenda of coming together and creating compelling drama. That's our number one goal. But if outside that goal - and that's a big one to live up to - if outside that goal we can actually make some kind of social commentary or even potentially give someone hope, provide someone a moment of self-reflection, if they see themselves potentially in one of the people we're portraying, that's icing on the cake, really.

And the good news is so far, I've - especially in talking with Warren Boyd, the man I'm portraying on screen - he claims lives have been saved already in the three weeks we've been on the air and since this show has been in production, through his various networks and people who have awareness of this show now, people writing on the Internet.

He's come into contact directly with people who have looked for help, requested the help, and actually he's given help to, and it's changed their life already.

Tavis: What's the challenge of trying to portray somebody on screen who is not only still living but still doing every day what you're portraying on screen every week?

Bratt: Good question. It actually depended upon how accurately you're trying to portray them. This ultimately is not a biographical portrayal. I'm taking the essential qualities of this man, and he's a man with real gravitas and a natural leadership quality that he carries with him everywhere. And also he's got that element of danger and mystery to him, he's a guy, like I said, who's done time in the joint, former drug user himself, and he doesn't play.

And so those qualities I try to grab from him and sort of imbue onto the character I'm portraying, but outside of that, he probably sees himself as a fairly regular Joe. He's not, but he might be getting on a private plane at midnight tonight, heading down to Mexico, grabbing someone, and coming right back. That's his life. Most of us can't really relate to that, but that's become the normalcy of his life.

Tavis: My time is just about up. When you walked on the set a few minutes ago I said to you, just from reading about your mother, that - and I don't have time to really get into it here - but your mother could be a fascinating series, or a series about your mother. Her life has been really interesting.

Bratt: See, her life has been fairly cinematic. She was under the guardianship of her grandmother, who worked for a wealthy American family, and at the tender age of 14, she immigrated to this country with this wealthy family, and after her grandmother passed away two years being here, they adopted her and put her through professional nursing school. So it was truly like a rag-to-riches kind of tale.

And then she met my father, who was from a politically Socialist family, and she got disowned. And they went off and had five children, and it goes on from there, if we had more time.

Tavis: Five children, and takes these five kids to Alcatraz.

Bratt: Yeah. Well, just after her divorce in '69 from my father, it was a moment, I think, of a question of identity, and there was a lot of social activism going on at the time. You had the Black Panther movement going on in San Francisco, and she saw this young Native American leader named Richard Oaks on the KQ (inaudible) channel there, and saying Indians of all tribes unite.

So she called the station and actually got Richard Oaks on the phone. She said, "I'm South American, I'm a South American Indian, does that count?" He said, "Come on down, sister." And she went and become part of the takeover at Alcatraz, and we subsequently, the five of us children, lived on the island for the next year. (Laughter)

Tavis: See what I mean? I think -

Bratt: That's the beginning.

Tavis: I know. (Laughter)

Bratt: I could go on, but that's the beginning.

Tavis: I think the moral of the story is that you and that brother of yours ought to get busy when you're off "The Cleaner," working on that series about your mother's life.

Bratt: We got one in pocket, yeah.

Tavis: I like the sound of that. (Laughter) See you, Ben.

Bratt: Thank you.

Tavis: The show is "The Cleaner" on the A&E network.