Theater News

Alec Baldwin, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo Set for Normal Heart Film

Mark Ruffalo
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)
Mark Ruffalo
(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)

Casting has been announced for Ryan Murphy’s film version of Larry Kramer’s landmark play The Normal Heart, according to The Hollywood Reporter.


The play — which debuted Off-Broadway in 1985 and won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play — focuses on a crusading journalist and his friends who are dealing with the terrifying early years of the AIDS epidemic in New York.


Tony Award nominee Mark Ruffalo will play the central role of Ned Weeks; Alec Baldwin will play his brother, Ben, a straight lawyer who is initially reluctant to help his sibling; Matt Bomer will play Felix Turner, a New York Times reporter who becomes Ned’s lover; Jim Parsons will by Tommy Boatwright — the same role he played on Broadway — a young Southerner who join Ned’s cause; and Julia Roberts will play Dr. Emma Brookner, a tough, wheelchair-bound physician who treats the early patients and eventually battles the U.S. government for funding.


Murphy is best known as the co-creator of such TV series as Glee, American Horror Story, and Nip/Tuck. He directed the film Running With Scissors.