Benjamin Bratt Biography

Benjamin Bratt

Enshrined by People magazine as one of the world's sexiest guys, Bratt earned as much publicity for his now-defunct relationship with actress Julia Roberts as for his role on NBC's hit series Law & Order. The son of a German/English sheet-metal worker and a Native American nurse from Peru, his grandfather, George Bratt, appeared on Broadway. Bratt's first public outing was alongside his activist mother in the Native American takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1968. Graduating with honors from the acting program at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, he appeared in several forgettable movies in the early '90s, including Shadow Hunter (1992) and Chains of Gold (1991), before landing the part of Detective Reynaldo “Rey” Curtis on Law & Order (1995–1999). In 2000, he starred with Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality and appeared in the Madonna flop, The Next Best Thing. Hoping to shake off his eye-candy image, he next took on the gritty lead role in the biopic Pinero (2001), which earned him wide critical praise but not much commercial attention. He wed his Pinero costar, Talisa Soto, in April 2002.