Jenna Boures
Staff Writer
Every theater kid living in suburbia has a dream role they’d love to play, whether it be on the silver screen or the live stage. For actor Matt Bomer, that dream role has become a reality. The White Collar star is set to play reporter Felix Turner in HBO’s adaption of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart.
Bomer stumbled upon the script for Kramer’s play back in high school in the 1990s –right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. The Normal Heart was the Texas teen’s window into the current social and political actions of that time.
“I was relatively sheltered,” Bomer explained to Out.com. “It wasn’t until I read Larry’s work that I had any kind of understanding as to what was really going on in the world around me. It just lit this fire in my belly.”
Kramer’s autobiographical play is set from 1981-84 and tells the story of how Kramer and his friends founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. The love story between activist Ned Weeks (based on Kramer) and closeted Felix Turner parallels the social problems faced in the play.
Gripped by The Normal Heart, young Bomer “felt the need to let people know that this was going on,” and began performing monologues from the show along with pieces from its companion work, The Destiny of Me, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
Ryan Murphy, creator of Glee, American Horror Story, and Nip/Tuck, was motivated to adapt Kramer’s story for the screen. Bomer was equally motivated to win the part of Felix.
“Matt, out of everybody, fought the hardest for it,” said Murphy. “It was that same passion that I had used to persuade Larry Kramer to give me the rights to the play.” Confident in Bomer’s ability to take on the role, Murphy arranged a meeting for the actor to meet Kramer.
The pipe dream Bomer held on to when he was just a teen living in the suburbs of Texas was finally realized when he met Kramer and secured the role of Felix. “I was pretty starstruck. It was like meeting one of the Beatles. He was so central to my understanding and development. We talked for a really long time.”
“You’re really lucky as an artist if you get a role that changes you as a person,” said the actor. “It taught me how to access myself on a completely different level as an artist. And it blew my mind in terms of the level of unconditional love between Ned and Felix — my goodness, if these people could incorporate this into their lives, under their circumstances, why can’t I?”
It is clear that everyone involved in the stage-to-screen adaption has been touched by The Normal Heart and its realistic portrayal of the homophobic inaction that pervaded the 1990s.
“I wanted as many people as possible to see this story,” said Murphy, specifically mentioning “the Glee generation,” who are unfamiliar with the work. “I think it’s always important for people to see our history, no matter how difficult it is to watch.”
Bomer’s passion to fight homophobic injustice hasn’t faded since those high school days. “Activism isn’t beautiful and easy, or a bunch of people getting together and picketing; it’s a lot more complicated and difficult than that,” he explained. “And true love — the most unconditional love — can be experienced by anyone, regardless of their sexuality.”
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