Ryan Murphy and Larry Kramer’s recent HBO film “The Normal Heart” certainly garnered a massive of amount of praise from viewers across the nation as they watched the film depict the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s. But one high-profile fan in particular came as a shock to Murphy, and that fan was, much to everyone’s surprise, President Barack Obama.
According to Deadline, Murphy and Obama have known each other for years, with Murphy even hosting a major fundraiser for Obama at his house in 2012. However, Murphy didn’t know that Obama would be tuning into his movie and he was shocked when the president gave him a call this week to praise him for the film.
Obama was reportedly moved by the heart-wrenching film about the HIV epidemic in the gay community and he took time to ask Murphy about how the film came together. However, the original idea came from Kramer, who had been trying to adapt his stage play into a film for the past three decades. In 2010, Murphy took it upon himself to help Kramer turn the play into a film and four years later the film was finally released and seen by millions across the globe.
And that fact wasn’t at all lost on Murphy.
“The whole movie is about Larry trying to get the attention of Washington and 30 years later, to get a call from the president is a full-circle moment,” Murphy said.
It’s a full-circle moment indeed, and just another example of Obama’s progressive and changing mind-set on LGBT issues. –nicholas robinson
