Just yesterday we brought you a new image from Ryan Murphy’s HBO TV movie The Normal Heart, which is based on Larry Kramer’s acclaimed play about the early days of AIDS crisis. Now our attention has been drawn to the fact that the first footage from the film has debuted – even if it’s a bit blink and you’ll miss it.

The shots come as part of a montage of what HBO has to offer in 2014, which means it only has time for a couple of seconds from The Normal Heart, although that’s enough to show us Mark Ruffalo being hauled away by cops, Julia Roberts as a doctor, Jim Parsons looking a little lonely, Taylor Kitsch being upset and Ruffalo going nose-to-nose (in a cute way) with Matt Bomer.

You can watch the footage above, which should be lined up so it starts just before the Normal Heart footage begins.

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 later became 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.

HBO will air the movie next year. [Read more…]