Benjamin Bratt - Brief Article - Interview

Interview, May, 2000 by Brendan Lemon

EVEN MAMAS AND LLAMAS LOVE THE GUY--NOT TO MENTION PRETTY WOMAN

BRENDAN LEMON: We shot you with a llama, because you have Peruvian Indian blood--Quechua, to be exact--on your mother's side. Did you yourself grow up in Peru?

BENJAMIN BHATT: No. I was born and raised in San Francisco, right in the city. My mother came to this country when she was fourteen years old and was in the care of her grandmother, who happened to be a domestic worker for a wealthy American family. And when her grandmother passed away, the family legally adopted my mother. After going through professional nursing school, she married my father, who was an American of German and English descent, and had five kids. I was the middle one. When I was born, in 1963, there was a great social pressure to homogenize and forget your culture and become American, so I think on some level my mom gave in to that and we didn't grow up speaking Spanish. What we didn't escape was a kind of cultural DNA. We grew up with a strong sense of family.

BL: Did your mother tell you much about her homeland?

BB: She made us aware at a very early age of the indigenous aspect of her culture. And this was in fact uncommon at the time because, even today, there's such a great prejudice in South America against the indigenous culture that people are afraid to admit that they're part native. To call someone an "indio" is still an insult.

BL: Did you experience the North American version of that attitude as a kid?

BE: I remember an example that happened when I was probably no more than four years old. My brother and I were playing in a neighborhood friend's garage, and he disappeared for a minute. When our friend came back he said that we had to go home-"Because my father doesn't want any niggers in his house." We didn't even know what the word was.

BL: Unfortunately, any person of color has a story like that.

BB: It's sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle, but it's all part of the racism that is pervasive in this country. It's an issue that hasn't been fully dealt with, even though it's the basis for everything in the way we treat each other.

BL: Have you ever visited Peru and seen the treatment of indigenous people firsthand?.

BB: Yes. My first time was when I was sixteen; I was too young to appreciate my heritage. But I was also there about a year ago. I went to Cuzco, where my grandmother is from. Seeing the beauty of the people there made me feel completely full. I felt high every moment. And I couldn't figure out if it was the altitude or the coca tea! [laughs]

BL: Did you see any llamas when you were there?

BB: No. But I remember when I was a kid, my mother had this llama-and-alpaca fur blanket with an actual image of a llama right in the center, and it was her prized possession. She kept it in an old cedar chest, and we'd bust it out once a year, and she'd let each of us kids stroke it, lie on it, roll around in it. She said, "This is where I'm from. This comes from an animal called the llama. If you're not careful, he'll spit on you."

BL: Did you think about being spit on when Bruce Weber asked you to go near the llama in our photograph?

BB: I said, "He ain't gonna spit on me, is he? Because I got a nice white shirt on." [laughs]

BL: Your upcoming movies take you away from the nice white shirt and matching tie you wore during your years on TV's Law & Order. What are these movies about?

BB: Well, there's Red Planet, a sci-fi thing opening in November. That was a departure from what I'm used to doing.

BL: And you've been shooting something down in Belize, a sunken-treasure story called After the Storm, based on the Hemingway short story of the same title.

BB: Yes. And in June or July I'll be filming something in New York called Pinero, based on the life of Miguel Pinero, a celebrated theater darling of the late '70s and early '80s. He was one of the cofounders of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe in New York. He wrote the play Short Eyes [1974] and acted in the movie Fort Apache, the Bronx [1981]. He was a very complicated individual--a heroin addict, an actor, a poet who was on fire. It's going to present a huge challenge to me as an actor. But I'm ready to go there.

BL: Let's return to animals. Are you more of a dog person or a cat person? That's not a coded question, by the way! [laughs]

BB: Definitely more a dog person. I always tell people who own cats, when I walk into their homes, "I don't like cats." And then I usually end up liking their particular cat. It's the cats that are haughty that I just can't get with. But I myself am now the proud owner of a beautiful new horse, as of last Christmas.

BL: Did you buy it?

BB: It was a gift. The most amazing gift I've ever received.

BL: Was it from your girlfriend, Julia Roberts?

BB: Yeah. He's sixteen hands high and the most beautiful chocolate brown color you've ever seen. He's four years old.

BL: Where do you keep him?

BB: On a ranch out in the Southwest. His name is Dasher, but that's going to change.

BL: How was he presented to you?

BB: I was blindfolded and carefully led out to the horse pen. The blindfold was lifted, and there before me was this mass of hair and mane and hooves and muscle. I couldn't form words for about thirty seconds.