Mark Ruffalo The Normal Heart
Mark Ruffalo who is straight playing gay, talks about why he did The Normal Heart, and how he feels about it.
“I was growing up during the AIDS epidemic, and I saw how cruel and how insensitive people were to these people suffering. It sort of has been forgotten in our culture what happened during those times.”
Many of the pioneering HIV/AIDS activists depicted in the film, he added, “brought us to the point today…gay marriage is as common almost as marriage right now.”
“That was an important story that needed to be told, and I was honored to tell it with the folks that I got to tell it with, and having Larry Kramer’s words to convey it,” he noted.
I’m looking forward to The Normal Heart. I grew up gay during that time, too. But I think this is what happens sometimes when straight actors play gay roles. It’s not that they can’t play the parts. It’s just that when it comes time for publicity they say things that often make me wonder. Matt Damon did the same thing after the Liberace HBO movie and I commented in a post about that in March 2013. (And I thought Damon was wonderful in the film.) I think if Ruffalo were gay he would have said a few different things. First, the comment about marriage. Tony and I are legally married in only a few states, not in PA where we live and pay taxes. One mile away in New Jersey we are legally married. Gay marriage outside New York and other metropolitan areas is far from being as common as “marriage” right now. But more than that, marriage is marriage. Period.
And please don’t tell me I’m scrutinizing this too much. No one dares to say that to Whoopi Goldberg or Oprah Winfrey if they know what’s good for them. I want the same respect.
Colin Firth On Rupert Everett
This bit of news won’t change the world. But what the hell. Sometimes it takes a while for actors to open up, and when they do it can be interesting. This time it’s Colin Firth talking about working with Rupert Everett years ago when most of us were still kids.
‘We started off as friends, then it went horribly wrong about two weeks in,’ Firth recalled. ‘He was incredibly unpleasant.
He described me as a “ghastly guitar-playing socialist.” I did not have a guitar.’
But the two managed to patch things up and work together again – most notably in Shakespeare in Love. Says Firth: ‘We’re great friends now.’
There’s more here. Best buds forever.
Matt Bomer Too Beautiful for Normal Heart
No one can promote anything better than Larry Kramer, so there will be more than a few posts and links until The Normal Heart airs on HBO this May. When it comes to self-promotion Kramer makes one pushy gay male m/m romance author I know look tame in comparison. (Sorry, no names.) This time the link is to an article where Larry Kramer thought Matt Bomer was too beautiful to play this part in the film but Ryan Murphy didn’t agree.
To convince Kramer, Murphy arranged for the two men to meet and the 36-year-old Bomer admits that going in, he was ‘starstruck’ because he had first read The Normal Heart as a 14 year old.
‘It was like meeting one of the Beatles,’ Bomer tells the magazine.
‘He was so central to my understanding and development. We talked for a really long time.’ Kramer, who has waited nearly 30 years for his acclaimed play about the early days of the AIDS crisis to be turned into a movie, sent Murphy an email immediately after his meeting with Bomer which simply stated: ‘He’s the one.’
Frankly, I’m still not over the fact that Matt Bomer isn’t going to be Christian Grey. But I’m glad he snagged The Normal Heart role.