The Normal Heart: The film Barbra Streisand couldn’t make comes to life with Ryan Murphy

Taylor Kitsch will play a closeted investment banker turned AIDS activist in the film adaptation of The Normal Heart.

Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch is getting his gay on to star in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming HBO film The Normal Heart. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’s objectified the entire time! He’s playing a closeted investment banker . . . White collar on the down-low: sounds like my dream man.

The Normal Heart, which is an adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play about AIDS in the 1980s, will also star Jim Parsons, who was in the 2011 Broadway revival, as well as Matt Bomer, Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. Roberts worked with Ryan Murphy on his last film, Eat, Pray, Love.

Interesting fact: Barbra Streisand originally wanted to bring Kramer’s play to the big screen in the 1980s, but the notoriously scrupulous Streisand could not reach agreements with Kramer over rewrites and money, so The Normal Heart never made it past development. “I think it’s unfair to keep blaming me for the movie not getting made,” Streisand wrote on her website in June 2012. “I worked on it for 25 years, without pay. Larry had the rights for the last 15 years and he couldn’t get it made either. Those are the facts, and none of this is news to Larry.”

Ryan Murphy’s The Normal Heart will air on HBO in 2014.

Keep Reading

Van Goth

Van Goth made ‘Canada’s Drag Race’ look easy. But victory has a price

The drag phenom’s run complicated our idea of what a reality TV villain could be. She tells Xtra about clawing her way to the top—and her fight for what comes next
The cover of Charity and Sylvia

‘Charity and Sylvia’ beautifully illustrates a real-life 19th-century lesbian couple

Tillie Walden’s new graphic novel tracks the true story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake’s decades-long New England romance
Portland Fire guard Bridget Carleton (6) drives against Toronto Tempo forward Nyara Sabally (8).

The Toronto Tempo are a much-needed source of hope and connection for Canada’s queer community

Women’s sports are booming in North America. Canada’s first WNBA team is meeting the moment

Should AI use stop you from seeing ‘Stop! That! Train!’?

Director Adam Shankman told Xtra that the film actually did use some AI in its visual effects
Advertisement