Mark Ruffalo has himself a Normal Heart

Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo and Glee creator Ryan Murphy are teaming up to adapt play The Normal Heart for the big screen.

Ruffalo would play gay Jewish activist Ned Weeks, responsible for creating a prominent HIV advocacy group in the 1980s. The semi-autobiographic play was written by Larry Kramer.

MTV caught up with Ruffalo, who had this to say:

"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. We can get really cynical about what we can do, it gets stacked against us and they're all corrupt - and at the end of the day, everything starts with people. The reason they're there is because of us."

It isn’t thought that Murphy will be directing, though he is definitely aboard the project as producer. And considering the serious content, we can’t imagine that Ruffalo will be bursting into song any time during the film...

Source: [ MTV ]

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Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.