Ryan Murphy is sure doing well for himself. After creating Nip/Tuck, he went on to even greater success with Glee, and he’s now written and directed the chick-lit adaptation Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts, which hits US cinemas this week.
Last month, it was announced he was working on a new rom-com, which will also star Julia Roberts, about a woman learning to adjust to becoming a stay at home mom. If all that weren’t enough (and remember, he’s still got Season 2 of Glee to produce, and is supposedly in the running to direct the movie version of the musical, Wicked), MTV reports that he’s planning to take Larry Kramer’s semi-autobiographical play, The Normal Heart, from the stage to the screen, and he’s already lined up Mark Ruffalo to star.
Murphy told MTV, “I’m directing it from Larry Kramer’s beautiful script and we’re going to shoot that in June of next year, I think it’s an important story and I think Mark Ruffalo is just beyond brilliant so I’m very excited to be directing him.”
The play focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks (Ruffalo), who founded a prominent HIV advocacy group. At the time, despite a growing number of death, the disease was largely being ignored and thought of as ‘gay cancer’, so gay people took charge of the debate themselves, making it a huge national issue.
Goodness knows how Murphy will has the time for all this, but let’s hope he manages.