The criminally under-appreciated Mark Ruffalo has revealed he is set to lead an upcoming adaptation of Larry Kramer’s semi-biographical play about about a prominent HIV advocacy group founder in “The Normal Heart.”
“I just signed on tentatively with Ryan Murphy to do ‘The Normal Heart,'” Ruffalo told MTV. “It’s really beautiful. Larry Kramer did a script adaptation. It’s really powerful and strong and beautiful.”
The actor will play the story’s lead Ned Weeks, a role first portrayed by Brad Davis in the play’s 1985 Broadway debut with the likes of Richard Dreyfuss and Martin Sheen leading other subsequent productions. “It’s a juicy part,” Ruffalo added. “It’s just a great role, man. He’s a fighter, you know?”
“It’s basically a story of when the AIDS outbreak happened in New York. It wasn’t really taken seriously, I think specifically because it was ‘the gay cancer,’ they called it. I think it’s a really interesting time in America. I think to see someone who really does change the world by his commitment and he’s even totally by himself at times, there’s still a real power in that. I love that it’s a people-powered movement that actually changed the way our government looked at this epidemic. I think there’s a real powerful message to that and something that we forget.” Sounds pretty compelling and, with Ruffalo’s high standards of picking projects, we’re fairly confident in the prospects of this one.
While the role of “Glee” and “Nip/Tuck” creator Ryan Murphy is not exactly specified by Ruffalo, we imagine it would be something substantial if the actor is going to describe him as someone he’s signing on “with.” The story’s potential exploration of sex segregation could also play into the hands of the openly gay Murphy who has previously helmed 2007’s “Running With Scissors,” has the upcoming Julia Roberts starrer “Eat Pray Love” out later this year and had been linked to a now defunct erotic thriller called “Need” which would have teamed childhood friends Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman.
The film sounds thematically similar to the long gestating “Dallas Buyers Club” which at one point would’ve brought together director Craig Gillespie and Ryan Gosling to tell the true story of a man who contracts AIDS in the early years of the epidemic and is then forced to underground to source the then FDA unapproved medication he needs in order to sustain his life. That’s still a story we’d love to see but for now, a Murphy/Ruffalo collaboration isn’t such a bad compromise.
