MovieChat Forums > The Normal Heart (2014) Discussion > Matt Bomer needs an Emmy...

Matt Bomer needs an Emmy...


Fantastic acting last night.

reply

I agree. I thought he truly was a stand out, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if he was nominated and won for an Emmy.

reply

Agreed. He was marvelous and showed what a fabulous actor he is.

reply

There was Emmy talk even before it aired. HBO has to submit their choices and I guess they couldn't do that before it aired, but I assume Matt Bomer, Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Murphy will be submitted.

reply

I agree. I wish this film had at least run one week in theaters. He would have been guaranteed an Oscar nod.

reply

I totally agree. I really wish HBO had found a way to give it some kind of theatrical release so that Matt would have been eligible for an Oscar nom. The performance deserved it. Hopefully he'll get another chance at an Oscar-worthy role some time in the future (although without the health-compromising weight loss).

reply

I agree .....
he did an amazing job!!

reply

I hope that after this amazing performance he will get more complex and exciting roles than white collars. He truly deserves it.

reply

To be honest, I think this project and the entire cast is going to clean up come Emmy time.

reply

Hope you're right.

Remember the magic words: "Please", "Thank you" and "Step off bitch!"

reply

Once again an HBO movie trumps the trash currently contaminating the plexes. And while I've never been a Julia Roberts fan, and had only seen Matt Bomer in the worthless "Magic Mike", their performances in "Normal Heart" were beyond amazing. Ms. Roberts was astoundingly good, and Mr. Bomer was truly the heart and soul of the movie (which needed both). These two actors in particular deserve Emmys, and I sincerely hope the fact that Mr. Bomer is gay does not harm the substantial career-boost that awaits him.

reply

Matt Bomer was great. He deserves an Emmy. What i have seen of Larry Kramer over the years Mark did a great job. Julia Roberts was not great. I am not on the hate Julia bandwagon. She improved, but the beginning was rough. The movie should have been a little longer though. Aids need to be back in the forefront.

reply

I agree with all your points. Just finished the film and WOW. I too am not a Julia Roberts fan at all. I never found her an Oscar-caliber actress but she wasn't *terrible* in this role, right? I wasn't very familiar with Matt Bomer but he was incredible in this role.

Your most important point: AIDS needs to be back in the forefront. I was shocked by the stat reading that 6,000 people are still being diagnosed Iwith HIV) DAILY. That is terrifying. I don't remember when I last heard a news story about AIDS, and seeing people like Magic Johnson gives an incredibly false sense of security. This is a film that should be shown in theaters for sure.

reply

I thought I was the only that isn't a fan of Julia Roberts! When the wheelchair turned around, my heart dropped. Nevertheless, she was just ok. I thought all of the other actors were awesome but particularly Ruffalo, Bomer and Montello. The naked guy walking down the steps at the beginning of the movie wasn't bad either!

reply

I sincerely hope the fact that Mr. Bomer is gay does not harm the substantial career-boost that awaits him.

I shall be so super-pissed if that happens.

reply

I think he will be just fine. He is well liked, women love him, men love him. I remember my grandmother crushing on him when he was on Guiding Light.

"Give a hand to my band, Sexual Chocolate!" Coming to America

reply

HE MUST WIN!!

reply

Matt gave an amazing performance. He definitely deserves an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

reply

He was incredible and will definitely be up for an Emmy. I also thought Joe Montello was fantastic.

The movie itself had issues. Ryan Murphy is just not a good director. Had Mike Nichols done this movie it would have been a masterpiece. Murphy is extremely creative and has great ideas but he is not a director.

The story, writing, and acting were all top notch. The editing and directing were not so great and made it feel like a made for TV movie.

with that said, there were some powerful moments. Julia Roberts was excellent and her speech was fantastic.

reply

I never felt this film as TV-made. It has MUCH MORE QUALITY (by far) than many films released in theaters.

reply

Agreed.

reply

Add Joe Mantello. His one speech was effin great, period.

-------------------------------
Wie Du mir, Sodomie.

reply

Yes, yes, yes!!! His speech was so powerfully delivered that I forgot I was watching a movie.

reply

Add Joe Mantello. His one speech was effin great, period.


Yes, yes, yes!!! His speech was so powerfully delivered that I forgot I was watching a movie.


Seconded! Despite having seen the play onstage less than three years ago, Mantello's performance of Mickey's big scene in the movie was so astonishing that I had to go back and consult the original (stage) script afterward, just to see whether he had improvised any of that speech in the movie, that's how real it felt.

He wasn't improvising at all, folks. There are maybe a small handful of added or deleted "ums" or modifiers that don't precisely match the stage script -- shockingly few, actually, for a nearly-seven-minute scene driven more or less singlehandedly by a single actor. And then there are a number of sentences or sections that were cut or rearranged from the stage version, presumably by Kramer and/or Murphy. (The way these somewhat larger alterations streamline the scene, and strengthen its momentum, seems very deliberate. Mantello's performance makes Kramer's words sound utterly spontaneous, like this is all just tumbling out of him, almost beyond his control by the end. But if you compare his performance line-by-line with the stage script, the [textual] editing is actually so clean -- with none of the waffling that usually occurs when an actor loses his place or jumps ahead and then circles back around -- that it's pretty impossible to imagine these changes could have been "accidental" or improvised).

Clearly, I must have seen this speech performed, in substantially the same form, by another actor when I saw the play on Broadway. But just as clearly, at that time the scene left nowhere near the impression on me that Mantello's performance of it does in the movie. Absolutely shattering -- and again, so startlingly convincing that I was literally unsure whether or not he was working from a script. Despite having heard these lines spoken by someone else not all that long ago (and I usually have a very good memory for this kind of thing; three years isn't very long by my standards).

Unfortunately, if both Bomer and Mantello are nominated, they will likely be competing in the same category...

reply

[deleted]

^Yes! That's a huge accomplishment for an actor to handle such an emotional scene while also sticking to the script.

You'd probably never see that monologue performed so powerfully onstage. Meltdown scenes are very difficult for stage actors to perform unless it's at the end of the play, due to the fact that they have to hold their emotion in reserve to get through their entire performance. It's one of the advantages of film acting: Mantello could prepare himself for that scene and let it rip, knowing that he could rest up afterwards.

reply

I agree. Him and Jim Parsons were great. I did not like the "heavy hitters" in this movie at all. Both Mark Ruffalo and Julie Roberts failed to make an impression, and I like them both.

reply

Can't believe he lost 40 pounds...he's already a thin type of guy....just crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/alphazoom
https://soundcloud.com/#carjet-penhorn

reply