“The Normal Heart” wins Emmy for best TV movie – Larry Kramer joins Ryan Murphy and cast on the stage

I was so sure Matt Bomer would win the Emmy tonight for supporting actor in a TV movie or miniseries, that when he did not I quickly realized something: it was the most upset I had been about an awards outcome since Lauren Bacall lost the Oscar back in 1997.

Matt’s performance in The Normal Heart was so astonishing and so worthy of an Emmy that I can only figure he was canceled out by competing in the same category with three of his co-stars: Jim Parsons, Alfred Molina and Joe Mantello.

Julia Roberts had already lost then Ryan Murphy lost for directing, Larry Kramer lost for writing and Mark Ruffalo lost in the lead actor category for one of the best performances of his career.

Could this really be happening?

It did.

But then, at last, a win – a big one.

The AIDS drama, which took 30 years to reach the screen, won the Emmy for Best TV Movie.

Murphy slowly escorted a frail Kramer – the activist and author wrote the movie and the Tony Award winning play about the early days of the AIDS crisis in New York City – to the stage.

They were accompanied to the stage by Ruffalo, Bomer, Roberts, Molina,. Parsons, and Mantello.

‘We’re only here because of one person and that’s Larry Kramer,’ Murphy said. ‘We did this for him.’

Kramer wore an ACT UP cap representing the advocacy group he helped form and was successful in demanding greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and pressured the federal government for a coordinated national policy to fight the disease.

He had endured decades of frustration in getting his landmark play made into a movie and had a well-publicized feud with Barbra Streisand who held the rights for a decade.

‘After 30 years, it took the super powers of Erin Brockovich (Roberts) and The Hulk (Ruffalo) to get this thing alive.’

The director used the win as a call to action for future activists.

‘We’re gonna use the rest of our time to ask the young people watching to become Larry Kramers, to find a cause you believe in that you will fight for, that you will die for.

‘This is for all of the hundreds of thousands of artists who passed from HIV AIDS in 1981. Your memory and your passion burns on in us and this is for them.’