Adapted from an autobiographical play by HIV/AIDS activist Larry Kramer in 1985, the HBO film, 'The Normal Heart', will air in 2014 with an all-star cast that includes Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Jim Parson, Alfred Molina, and Taylor Kitsch.
According to MSN News, producer Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story) who bought the rights from Kramer in 2010, found it "sort of thrilling" to cast openly gay leads, Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons in a TV Drama about AIDS.
According to Today, Parsons said about the project, "As much as (the play is) specific to the topic, the AIDS crisis, the humanity that overreaches all of it is what really kind of hurts your heart at the end of it. It feels like something horrible that happened that has happened before in different ways, and it feels like, humans being humans, may happen again. And maybe that's why a story like this is so important to tell in the hope that maybe that can be course corrected, and that it not happen again."
In a report by the Huffington Post, Roberts admitted to not being interested in the ovie at first, turning down the role twice.
"When Ryan asked me to play this character and I said no, I don't think he heard me," she said. She explained that her initial decision was due to the lack of understanding of the character. But her perpective changed after watching a document on polio.
"It unlocked the door to who this woman is to me and where her ferocious pursuit of correctness comes from, that's when Ryan received what he always gets, which is the answer he wants."
According to Today News, the 'Glee' and 'AHS' co-creator said that the movie is about 45% new material. He explained, "The thing that Larry writes about, he wrote that play in the idea of silence does equal death, and when people weren't writing about it and there were no solutions he was writing about his community's experience."
Murphy added that while the moie is set in the 80s, it tackles an issue that is very much relevant today.
"The thing that I was very drawn to with the material was it ends in 1984, but what it's about feels very sort of modern to me right now with gay marriage in the news and people sort of just fighting to be loved for who they are and to be accepted for who they are. I feel like it's still very sort of modern and very applicable to the way we're living today, and I think that, you know, history has proven Larry Kramer to be right."
To get ready for his role as Kramer, Ruffalo lost about 40 pounds and spent time with the now 78-year-old.
"I did spend quite a bit of time with him and came to really love him, and I've spent hours and hours and hours with him begging him to tell me stories about what they went through and about this time," he said.
The film will air on HBO this May.
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