'Queen of Pop' Madonna "cried and cried" while watching her ex-husband Sean Penn portray a homosexual politician in 'Milk', as the film reminded her of the gay friends she had lost to HIV/AIDS.

Penn won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in the movie, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California in the 2008 biopic, and the singer admits the drama brought her to tears, Interview magazine reported.

"Milk was such a brilliant film. I cried and cried. I loved it. He (Penn) is amazing... I could see why he would be attracted to the role and be able to say yes in two seconds. Watching Milk was such a trip down memory lane for me," Madonna said.

"What the movie triggered for me was all my early days in New York and the scene that I came up in... with Andy Warhol and Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. It was just so alive with art and politics and this wonderful spirit. So many of those people are dead now. I think that's one of the reasons I cried," she added.

The 'Material Girl' singer admits that it was during the initial years of her career that the deadly virus struck the country and people around her started dying suddenly.

"I don't know why I'm bringing all this up, but I guess it's just coming from that world in Michigan and the trajectory of my life: after going to New York and being a dancer when the whole AIDS epidemic started and nobody knew what it was," she said.