Benjamin Bratt
Born: 16th December 1963
Where: San Francisco, California
The part Peruvian Indian actor's breakthrough performance was Pinero, the biopic about the controversial New York poet.
The New York Times compared his portrayal to that of Dustin Hoffman bringing Lenny Bruce to life 27 years before.
Other high profile roles include Steven Soderbergh's Traffic and he was also Catwoman's cop love interest.
Born to a Quechua Indian from Lima, Peru and an American steel worker of English and German descent, he is the grandson of actor George Bratt.
In 1986, he graduated with honours from the University of California at Santa Barbara and entered the Master's programme at the American Conservatory Theatre of San Francisco.
Soon after that, the budding actor landed some screen work in a pilot for the TV series Juarez - but that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Bratt made his film debut alongside Michael Keaton in the police thriller One Good Cop in 1991.
Appearances followed in Sylvester Stallone sci-fi thriller Demolition Man and the gang war drama Bound By Honour.
However, his rise to stardom started from his role as Detective Reynaldo 'Rey' Curtis on the TV series Law & Order, from 1995 to 1999.
At the same time, cinema roles included that of Captain Ramirez in Clear and Present Danger opposite Harrison Ford and Ranger Johnny in The River Wild.
In 1997, he and his older brother, Peter, released Follow Me Home through their production company Chacras.
The film won several Bay Area awards and was accepted by the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2000, he starred opposite Madonna in the romantic comedy The Next Best Thing and switched genres for the sci-fi thriller Red Planet.
He also appeared alongside Sandra Bullock and Michael Caine in the rom-com Miss Congeniality and in the drugs thriller Traffic with an all-star cast.
Next came Pinero, where he met his future wife Talisa Soto after a publicised relationship with Julia Roberts from 1997 to 2001.
Recent work includes the part of cop Tom Lone in the generally disappointing Catwoman with Halle Berry and Stephen Gagjan's Abandon.
