“I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this,” Julia Roberts declares in The Normal Heart trailer. The Oscar winning actress, who plays doctor Emma Brookner is referring to the horrifying spread of HIV and AIDS in the early ’80s.
At the time, doctors didn’t know how to treat the often-fatal epidemic, and that’s when the story of HBO’s new film The Normal Heart begins. Based off the mostly autobiographical 1985 play by Larry Kramer, this adaptation follows several gay activists, who fought to force the government and doctors around the world to pay attention to the new disease.
“I am trying to understand why nobody gives a s–t that we’re dying!” screams Mark Ruffalo, who plays the distraught gay activist Ned Weeks, who lost his lover to AIDS.
Glee creator Ryan Murphy is directing the film, which also stars Glee‘s Jonathan Groff, Lone Survivor‘s Taylor Kitsch, White Collar‘s Matt Bomer, and The Big Bang Theory‘s Jim Parsons, who also appeared in the 2011 Broadway revival of the play.
When The Normal Heart returned to the stage in 2011, it won three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play.
The Normal Heart will premiere on HBO on Sunday, May 25 at 9 p.m. ET.
