NYPost: 'Getting Clean' with Benjamin Bratt
To win the part of ex-junkie and present-day interventionist and William Banks, actor Benjamin Bratt had to convince the producers of A&E’s new drama series “The Cleaner” that he wasn’t too pretty to play the part.
“When we had our first meeting with Benjamin at a hotel bar in Los Angeles, he was explaining how unattractive he could be while waitresses were literally walking over and sitting in his lap,” says Jonathan Prince, the show’s executive producer. “But when we went to do our screen test, he had roughed himself up a bit. His hair was longer and a little bit gray, and he had a goatee. And we learned that if you let the camera settle on him and allow him to do his thing, he’s willing to look ugly or show a bad glance.”
Bratt, who quickly rose to television stardom in the 1990s as Det. Rey Curtis on “Law & Order,” says he wanted the role because of Banks’ complexity, which he plays both with ease and intensity.
“He’s a deeply flawed individual, but he’s also a natural leader. He’s saved the lives of the people who are now on his team. He aspires to be a good husband and father but he’s still learning and he has a long way to go. Watching his evolution is going to be part of the show’s trajectory,” says Bratt, 44.
In the show’s pilot, Banks is pulled in all sorts of directions. He directs an intervention while coaching his anxious son’s football team. He tries to win the trust of his wife, Melissa (Amy-Price Francis), while employing a gorgeous woman he once slept with (Grace Park of “Battlestar Galatica”) on his team of interventionists. And he feels obligated to try to save addicts from themselves, a goal that’s both time consuming and dangerous.
“Anyone who is really devoted to their work knows that it’s often to the neglect of personal things in their lives. I love to work, but it’s demanding and I have to acknowledge that for many hours on end it pulls me away from that which I cherish the most, my wife and children,” says Bratt, who is married to actress Talisa Soto. They have two children, Sophia and Mateo.
“The Cleaner” also had another selling point for Bratt: William Banks is based on the life of Warren Boyd, who got clean 18 years ago and then made a pact with God.
“I understood then that what I needed was to help people in order to save my own soul,” says Boyd, an executive producer on the show. One benefit of the job: he acts as a self-described “bulls–t detector” for the cast and crew.
“We’re leaning into authenticity. The pilot is the real deal and we need to swing it forward from there and keep it real,” says Boyd, who is credited with staging interventions with Robert Downey Jr., Whitney Houston and Courtney Love. “Honestly, I’m not personalizing it that much. I see the show as a vessel to spread as a message to massive groups of people. It’s more about the mechanism than it is about me.”
When he talks “mechanism,” Boyd means the way he works with people. That changes based on the case, something the stories on “The Cleaner” will reflect. “I really never try to determine what method I use until I see what’s going on with that person,” says Boyd. “The method is to create a method on the spot.”
One of the most unusual aspects of the series are Banks’ frequent chats with God. He talks to God not in a “Hail Mary, Full of Grace” kind of way, but in the way you might talk to a mentor or a boss with whom you are already pretty friendly.
While Banks relies on God, his team relies on him. “They don’t do it because they believe they are answering a call from God,” says Prince. “They are mercenaries and they need a paycheck.”
But for Banks, it’s all about redemption. “What excites me most about this show is exploring the possibility of the second chance,” says Bratt. “How many of us wish we could live some part of lives over?”
THE CLEANER
Tuesday, 10 p.m., A&E