When Larry Kramer’s autobiographical play The Normal Heart first appeared off-Broadway in 1985, the AIDS crisis was immediate, mysterious, and very scary. Thirty years later, the director Ryan Murphy, who is known for creating TV shows like Glee and American Horror Story, is reminding us of the depth of the epidemic with a TV movie based on the play—which first aired, aptly, over Memorial Day weekend on HBO. Although the AIDS epidemic began not that long ago, many people don’t recall what it was like. Entire worlds were being wiped out, and it is important that the human devastation be acknowledged.

The story follows the indignant and fiercely political Ned Weeks, played by Mark Ruffalo, and his longtime companion Felix Turner (Matt Bomer), a New York Times style reporter. When Felix, who is not openly gay, finds a purple lesion on his foot, the shame and fear experienced by so many at the time becomes horribly vivid. As Felix’s health deteriorates, Ned becomes a militant activist for safe sex and government-sponsored medical research. In the process, he alienates leaders of the gay community and chieftains of the medical community. The intensity of the relationship between the two men helps explain Ned’s brash behavior: He doesn’t want to lose his great love.

You can read the rest of the article here.

I added captures of Matt from “The Normal Heart”. I’ll also post a couple of video clips in a few days. It was such a beautiful film, and Matt’s performance was so exceptional! I hope everyone gets to see the film soon.

PS: I would like to thank Kathy C. for donating $25.00 to the site!

Thanks to my friend Claudia, I added photos of “The Normal Heart” cast from their USA Today photoshoot.

“The Normal Heart” premieres tonight at 9PM/8C on HBO!

I added photos of Matt at “The Normal Heart” Photo Call at the Inside Out Film Festival on May 23rd.

Another HUGE thanks to my friend Mary for donating all the photos!

Did they track you down for this role, or did you push for it?

I think it was probably both. Probably more so on my side. I just felt that it was a story I had been familiar with for so long that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least try to be a part of it.

You were very young during the ’80s, and you were a long ways away from the center of this story in New York. Were you aware of the story in the ’80s? Did you see it on TV? And now as you see it from your perspective, now when you play this character, what does it feel like?

This play was actually the first exposure I really had, a real understanding of the illness. I read it in the closet of my drama room when I was 14 years old, and the irony of that is not lost on me.

So, you know, I grew up in the Bible Belt, and there was no talk about [HIV]. I remember reading this play and seeing this neon blinking SOS and being terrified but also glad that I had some kind of understanding of what was going on, and I did lose friends. I started working at the theater in Art Town in the mid-’90s, which was in some ways an especially difficult time in the epidemic, and that was my first direct contact in losing friends and things like that. So I guess this story, for me, was always the genesis of my understanding of what the disease was.

How many conversations did you have with Larry about playing Felix?

First of all, I love Larry. We spent a good deal of time together talking about the world. He has done revivals of this play for so long, I didn’t want to keep rehashing tough territory for him. So much of this story really is in the text. The most important thing that he told me was it is more about who this individual was before he got sick and after. And the good and the bad with both of those sides of the coin.

You can read the entire interview here.

I added photos of Matt at the LACMA Screening And Q&A Of “The Normal Heart” on May 21st.

A HUGE thanks to my friend Mary for donating all the photos!

Matt will be appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday, May 30, 2014.

And in case you missed it, Matt tweeted from his verified account for the very first time. So exciting!

First tweet- thank you Ellen! @TheEllenShow pic.twitter.com/60DCEMagP5

— Matt Bomer (@MattBomer) May 23, 2014

Let’s start with the premiere. Larry Kramer was there. So many New York men who remember that time were there. I heard the sobbing was audible. What was it like to watch The Normal Heart on screen in a room full of those people?

Most importantly, getting to watch the standing ovation for Larry Kramer and to see him taking in a moment that was 30 years in the making was something I’ll never forget. For me, that was just one of those really rarified experiences that you’re very lucky if you get maybe once in a career as an artist.

But also, this is such a distinct part of New York history, this play, and I’m so thankful to HBO that they gave it such a grand opening there in New York. And paid homage and respect to this generation of people. Afterwards at the after-party, so many people who approached me wanted to tell me stories of people they lost and their experiences during that dark time in our history. They just wanted to cry and share their feelings with me. It was unforgettable. I became an actor because I read playwrights like Larry and Tony Kushner, and wanted to be a part of telling stories that hopefully have significance or can educate people or challenge their points of view or change their worldview the way these playwrights did for me. So to actually be a part of something like that as a grown-up, it’s like, man, you just check your ego at the door and try to serve the story.

There’s a headline that keeps circulating from a quote that you gave, where you said, “Larry Kramer probably saved my life.”

Yeah. I’m sure he did. At the time I first read it, my first sexual relationships were with women. But even then he put the fear of God in me! (Laughs) He educated me in a lot of ways. It was a very useful fear. But it was also the education to be smart and be safe, and that carried over into my later relationships and also when I started to have relationships with men.

But I think he saved me on a more profound than practical level. Even at 14 when I still didn’t know who I was when I read this piece—I was still figuring out who my most authentic self was—to have this voice that was such a firebrand and so honest and so authentic, to know that that reality was out there, even though it was nowhere near my immediate experience in suburban Texas, to know that somewhere it was out there gave me a sense of hope. And I think I knew on some level that a part of me that hadn’t been acknowledged yet was going to be OK.

You can read the entire interview here.

Matt Bomer joins the “Frank” Show to talk about his latest project – HBO’s “The Normal Heart” – his hit USA series “White Collar and so much more.

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I added photos of Matt at “The Normal Heart” Premiere tonight.

Thanks to my friends Mary, Holly, and Claudia for donating most of the photos!

Update: I have added over 100 more photos and also re-ordered them. You may need to hit your refresh button in your browser when viewing the gallery in order to see all the changes.

Here is an interview Matt did on the red carpet as well. I’ll post more videos here as I find them.

[spoiler][/spoiler]