Finding drug-free zone: Benjamin Bratt stars as 'The Cleaner,' helping addicts kick the habit

International Herald Tribune - Actor Benjamin Bratt remembers first hearing the concept for "The Cleaner." It grabbed him, "however unbelievable I found it to be."

Months later, he read the pilot script and saw the possibilities in this new A&E drama series. He liked how it's part serialized portrait, part procedural. As for a heroin-addict hero whose last-ditch bid for recovery calls for him to help other addicts get clean, well, this "extreme interventionism" still had Bratt scratching his head.

"In my first meeting with the co-creators, Jonathan Prince and Robert Munic, I asked them, 'How do you think audiences are gonna take to the idea? It seems a little outside the realm of possibility.'