Julia Roberts is staring in The Normal Heart and she plays a wheelchair-bound doctor who is on the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s. The Normal Heart is a movie adaptation of Larry Kramer's autobiographical play.

ABC reported that Roberts had turned down the role twice before but she finally joined the cast which includes Mark Ruffalo, Taylor Kinney and Jim Parson.

Roberts said at first she did not connect with her character but now after more persona growth she was ready to take on the role. “A little bit of it is my own personal growth, I think, and really dismantling my character down to her as a person – because it’s so much about her as this doctor and her as this crusader,” said Roberts.

This project also teams up Roberts with her real life husband, Danny Moder, who was the director of photography on The Normal Heart."Because he’s my husband, I want him to think I’m so cool,” said Roberts.

The Normal Heart debuts on HBO on May 25.

Roberts recently suffered the loss of her half-sister who died. She died from a suicide, not an accidental overdose as it was first reported. Officials confirmed that she died of a suicide on Wednesday, New York Daily News added