Ryan Murphy Wants Julia Roberts for Film

Ryan Murphy says his next project will be the film version of The Normal Heart and he hopes Julia Roberts will join Mark Ruffalo in the cast, according to an interview with Deadline.

Murphy says, "The Normal Heart is the thing that I'm going to do next. I optioned it and there's a brilliant script that Larry Kramer wrote and I'm going to do that with Mark Ruffalo and maybe Julie Roberts. I believe in that play."

For the past year Murphy has been rumored to direct Larry Kramer's adaptation of his seminal 1985 play about the early years of the AIDS epidemic in New York City. Ruffalo has been attached nearly as long to portray the play's hero Ned Weeks. If cast, Roberts will likely play Dr. Emma Brookner, which won Ellen Barkin a Tony Award earlier this year when the play was revived in New York. Murphy and Roberts previously collaborated on last year's film adaptation of Eat Pray Love.

Besides the third season of his megahit Glee due this fall, Murphy's new supernatural series, American Horror Story, will premiere in October. Early word on the pilot episode, which stars Dylan McDermott, Connie Britton, and Jessica Lange, and was screened for television critics earlier this week, is that it's wildly over-the-top and very entertaining.