Openly gay Matt Bomer left his husband
and three children to prepare for his role in The Normal Heart.
Director Ryan Murphy's adaptation of
Larry Kramer's Tony-winning play premieres Sunday on HBO.
In the movie about the early days of
the AIDS pandemic in New York City, Bomer plays Felix Turner, a
closeted fashion reporter for The New York Times.
Speaking to HIV-Plus, Bomer, the
36-year-old star of USA's White Collar, said he lost at least
40 pounds for the role.
“I felt a tremendous responsibility
in playing this role, and part of it was creating that physical
reality for the second half of the film,” Bomer
said. “It was sort of one month of casual weight loss and then
two months of really aggressive weight loss, and that’s when I left
my family, toward the end of the second month, and then just lived on
my own in New York and really tried to focus on really solely what
Felix was going through. I obviously consulted someone and I
prepared our kids as best I could, but I felt it was best for me to
be away at that point in time until I sort of finished the project
and could start eating again.”
The film's all-star cast also includes
Mark Ruffalo, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts. (The
film's trailer is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)