Following the success of Behind The Candelabra and Looking, HBO certainly hasn’t had enough of gay-themed entertainment. One of its biggest original movies of 2014 is The Normal Heart, directed by Glee’s Ryan Murphy. The film, based on Larry Kramer’s acclaimed play about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, is a bit of an all-star affair.
Now it’s been announced the date it will first air in the US, with ComingSoon revealing it will debut Sunday, May 25th at 9:00 pm (ET/PT) on HBO.
Mark Ruffalo takes on the lead role of Ned Weeks, who in the early 80s is one of the first people to raise an alarm about the new disease that initially was known as ‘Gay Cancer’, but which later was called HIV/AIDS. Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons will be gay activist Tommy Boatwright, a role he previously took in a 2011 Broadway revival of the play.
Julia Roberts is Emma Brookner, a wheelchair bound doctor who is the only one of her peers in New York taking AIDS seriously. Matt Bomer is Felix Turner, a gay fashion journalist who becomes Ned’s lover. Jonathan Groff is playing an early victim of the disease called Craig, whose boyfriend, Taylor Kitsch, starts off as a closeted investment banker but eventually becomes an AIDS activist.
Larry Kramer’s play is considered one of the most important reactions to the early AIDS epidemic, written by someone who has on the front lines of the fight, such as co-founding Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP. He later wrote a follow-up, The Destiny Of Me.
It’s not clear when the rest of the world will get to see The Normal Heart, but it should be shortly after the US HBO premiere.
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