ML - Austin Way

Austin Way - 2017 - Issue 5 - Late Fall - Luke Wilson

Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.

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solving series White Collar as sexy con artist Neal Caffrey, which launched him to Sexiest Man on TV status. While Bomer's picture-perfect looks have no doubt aided his career, he hasn't discovered a way to discuss this topic that doesn't feel uncomfortable. "It's always surprising to me anyone would perceive me that way." he says. "Objectively, it's worked for me and against me. It's so out of my hands." What he can control, as he now so often does, is the metamorphosis his characters go through. Nowhere was that quite as evident as in Bomer's Golden Globe-winning performance as Felix Turner in Ryan Murphy's film adaptation of Larry Kramer's play, e Normal Heart. Bomer lost 40 pounds to play the closeted New York Times reporter whose health deteriorates after he contracts AIDS in the early 1980s. "It was such an educational play for me. ... [I was] living in suburban Texas, [and it helped] me understand what was in the world around me when no one else near me was talking about it," explains Bomer. "I used to do scenes from it in high school, which was crazy and, I guess, bold that I was doing it in Texas." Going into the film version, he approached Murphy, telling him he would be happy in the background as long as he got to be part of the experience. "e fact that I got to portray Felix—one of those characters who never leaves you because of their courage in humanity—was the best gift I've ever been given by anyone in this industry." By the time e Normal Heart was released, Bomer had already publicly acknowledged his relationship to Halls in an acceptance speech for the Steve Chase Humanitarian Award and was now living his life in the open. "at had no bearing on whether or not I'd want to play Felix," says the actor while acknowledging how fortunate he is to live the life he does. "ere's no need for adjectives around anything anymore. It's so '90s to even put adjectives in front of titles now," he says. "I'm a lucky human being who has a beautiful family." It seems all doors are open for Bomer, who is currently starring as the fictional version of producer Irving alberg in e Last Tycoon, the series adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's final book. Next spring he makes his directorial debut in e Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, a professional move 20 years in the making. "I've been asked before, but I always had a prominent role in a production. I wanted to come at it with fresh eyes, independent of being in the middle of a story being told, and be able to put my own fingerprint on the work," he says, adding with a laugh: "I am terrified and excited and sometimes both in the same moment." Bomer would also like to do more stage work and produce his own films. And he would, of course, never say no to another Magic Mike sequel. "I would do any movie with that group of guys. I really would," he says, joking that the follow up to X XL may have to be called A ARP. But above all, Bomer now wants to be pickier about what he does professionally—not because of the legacy his work will leave behind, but in order to spend more time with his family. "Once you become a parent, your world becomes much more tightknit," he says. "It becomes about the family, as it should be. at's who lifts me up in a storm. We're fortunate to have loving kids who haven't been caught up in the wave of being too cool to give us hugs and kisses just yet. My family makes me smile at the end of a hard day." "Once you become a parent, your world becomes much more tightknit. It becomes about the family, as it should be. That's who lifts me up in a storm. We're fortunate to have loving kids who haven't been caught up in the wave of being too cool to give us hugs and kisses just yet." 61 A U S T I N W A Y L A T E F A L L 2 0 1 7 | M O D E R N L U X U R Y . C O M

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