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Matt Bomer: The OUT Magazine cover story

Growing up in the small Houston suburb of Spring, Texas, Matt Bomer discovered the work of Larry Kramer before he even knew he was gay himself.

At 14, Bomer pulled Kramer’s play The Normal Heart from the shelf of a small library in the closet of his high school theater. As a Texas teen in the ‘90s, the AIDS crisis was happening elsewhere, but something about the story spoke to him.

Now, 20 years later, after building a solid, steady television career, Bomer will star in Ryan Murphy’s HBO adaptation of the play.

For OUT’s June/July 2014 double issue cover story, Bomer sat with Shana Naomi Krochmal, former deputy editor of POZ, a magazine founded by ACT UP alumni, to discuss meeting Kramer, winning the role of a lifetime, and how he manages to keep his own life normal. On being out publicly about his family:

Here are some excerpts”

“I’m so thankful to have been born in the times that we live in. I felt a responsibility to Simon [Halls] and to our kids to be able to live with integrity and not have some strange split psychology of This is who my dad is at home, and this is who he is to the public. That trumped any type of professional repercussions that it could have had. And – not by my own volition or choice – I’ve been playing exclusively straight characters for the first 10 years of my career. Whatever happens from this point on says a lot more about the business and society than it does about me.”

On his wedding to Simon Halls:
“It was very chill. Very small—only our nearest and dearest. There’s a security, a validity of knowing that it’s legal. It’s hard to put into words. It’s just a feeling, I guess—something about saying vows in front the people around you who love and support you. I think it was good for our family.

And at a 2012 Desert AIDS Project event in Palm Springs, he thanked his “beautiful family” and then named Halls and each of their children, Kit, Walker, and Henry:

“I frankly did not think people would be that interested. I certainly didn’t think it was going to be on the CNN ticker.”

On how being a father changed his priorities:

“There’s a level of love that really dissolves a lot of egotism and self-absorption. I mean – don’t get me wrong, I have my moments. But at a certain point in my life, my whole day would have been about this interview. Now it’s a small part of a day that also includes a drop-off at school in the morning and baseball practice and a lot of other things that take precedence.”

On meeting Larry Kramer:

“I was pretty star struck. It was like meeting one of the Beatles. He was so central to my understanding and development. We talked for a really long time.”

On Kramer’s activism:

“Larry is somebody we wish we had as our best friend growing up – as uncomfortable as he may have made us sometimes. 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. And true love – the most unconditional love – can be experienced by anyone, regardless of their sexuality.”

Here is a LINK to the full story.

FILE UNDER: Out Stars

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One Remark

  1. He’s impossibly handsome.

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