Norbert Leo Butz
What did you think when you first heard there was a "new" Mark Twain play?
I was intrigued. Like most people, my only Mark Twain reference was from high school literature. I loved Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. When this script was sent to me, I was laughing almost from the beginning, but I was really struck most by its lack of cynicism. It's a very generous, big-hearted comedy. He was able to make the political and social observations that he is known for without ever being mean-spirited. I also thought it was old-fashioned in a way that we just don't see on Broadway a whole lot. It reminded me, obviously, of Charley's Aunt, but also The Importance of Being Earnest. There's something Oscar Wildean about it. It's a farce, but it's also a comedy of errors…and a satire, although a very light one. And I thought David Ives did such an amazing job [adapting it for Broadway].
How different is David Ives' script from the original Twain version?
His job was mostly editorial. It was a much longer play and there were several subplots that—as delightful as they were—took away from the central story of this artist and this con. For instance, in our version there's the Irish, the German and the American sidekick. In the Twain version, there was an Irish, a German, an American, an Asian, a Middle Eastern guy…you know? He loves to make fun of stereotypes. And they were all interchangeable, so David just sort of lost some of those characters. But a lot of the jokes are exactly how they are in the original text.
Was it important to you to do a play after all of your success with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?
Did the rehearsal process feel like rehearsing a musical? It seems like such a precise type of comedy.
Yes, they're wonderful!
You say it's all carefully planned, but I felt like it also had an air of improv…
What makes Is He Dead? stand out in a season with so many plays?
So, without spoiling too much of the hilarity, tell me about your costumes for Is He Dead?
Is this show up your daughters' alley?
And what does your wife [actress Michelle Federer] think?
Speaking of family, I caught Dan in Real Life over Thanksgiving. It was fun to see you on the big screen!
The setting of that movie a lake house crammed with a large family must be what it's like for you to go home, being that you grew up with 10 siblings!
Wow.
Was it a big deal turning 40 in January?
Well, you have a lot to show for it. Those of us who have followed your career have favorite Norbert performances—and Broadway.com readers voted you Star of the Year in 2005. Did you have a moment where you…
You know what I mean.
But winning the Tony must have changed things for you.
You're hard on yourself!
Can we run through some of your major career milestones together?
Let's start with Rent. [Butz was the first replacement for Roger in the Broadway company.]
What about playing the Emcee on the first national tour of Cabaret?
How about Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years?
And then you played Fiyero in what has turned out to be the blockbuster musical to end all blockbusters: Wicked.
Then we have Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Sum that one up for me quickly!
And now you're off again with Is He Dead?
See Norbert Leo Butz in Is He Dead? at the Lyceum Theatre.
I love any role where someone is transformed during the course of the play, and this guy is transformed in the most egregious way [laughs]. Of course, I'm in a dress, and that's one of the oldest gags in the book. But I thought it was so sweet and wonderful that he's a very talented painter at the beginning of the play, and through the course of it, he also finds he has this talent for acting. He's terrified of performing this character, and as the play goes on, he falls in love with this character he's created. It's an artist finding this whole different talent that he didn't know was there.
Not necessarily. But it was important for me to do, as always, something I could really throw myself into and commit to and believe in and challenge myself. I'm at the point where I don't care anymore: I'll gladly sing a role or do it in a black box with no music at all if the part has a really interesting trajectory. I'm just on the lookout for good parts and wonderful directors, and this is one of the best ever. Michael Blakemore is such a dear man.
It is. This is very fast-paced and very stylized. It's almost scored, so finding the rhythm of the comedy is very musical. He's cast it with a lot of musical theater actors, and I think that was deliberate. A lot of them have such an innate sense of timing. And it's a great cast, isn't it?
There's something incredibly freeing about being on stage with such accomplished, funny people. The ball's always going to stay in the air and it gives you great confidence.
Yes, it's very loose and I love that. It's crucial for me for a show to remain fluid. I'm not interested in doing the same thing night after night. It gets me in trouble sometimes with stage managers! But when we were doing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, [director] Jack O'Brien said one of the smartest things I think I've ever heard about comedy. "What makes somebody laugh?" he said. "Just one thing: surprise." If you really look at anything that makes you laugh, it's, "Ah ha. I wasn't expecting that." There's a disconnect between the behavior and the situation that's happening. And in order to keep it surprising, you have to change it up. Not deliberately, but you have to be open to having it change itself.
Well, I remain hopeful that there's room for all of us! I haven't seen any of the other plays this season, but from what I've read, I understand they're fairly muscular, heavy projects. So maybe people can think of our show as the after-dinner crème brulee of the Broadway season [laughs]. I'm thrilled to be the not-so-good-for-you portion of the meal. But still really, really delicious.
Well, I rehearsed in a corset and in some foam double-E cups and layers of petticoats and skirts and three-inch heels…and earrings and fans…and handkerchiefs. There's nothing natural at all about this period with what women wore, and to put a man in it just exacerbates the ridiculousness of the decorating of the female form—and Twain knew that! But having said that, it's a ball to put it on. The costume takes care of a lot of the comedy for me and I now have a huge respect for all my sisters on Broadway who do period plays regularly. Because man, that corset is no joke. And the skirts—they trap the heat in! In rehearsals, my legs would be dripping with sweat. I think they weigh 16 or 17 pounds!
I think they're going to love it. Or be mortified. I don't know. I said to them last week, "Guys, I bet I'm the only dad at your school who goes to work and puts on a wig and lipstick and dresses." We live in suburban New Jersey. And then I thought, you know, there's probably a few others. I just do it publicly. No, but they're really excited. That's been the great thing about doing the play—having kids old enough to begin reading some Twain. We're reading Tom Sawyer a chapter at a time at bedtime and they're loving it. My older daughter is completely getting the irony and the sort of sardonic quality of his wit.
I think she loves it! The only thing she might have been worried about was that I was going to be prettier than she, but if you know my wife, very few people are prettier than she. So I told her she had nothing to worry about. My Daisy has an inner beauty that I think comes out. Even Twain describes her as a "handsome" woman [laughs].
Thanks! It's a cute movie. I think it's a really surprising performance from Steve Carell. He's a funny guy with a career that I really respect. The comedies he's done have been really smart. He came out of improv himself—out of theater in Chicago—and he spent a lot of time on stage. Those are always the best people to work with. If you're doing 18 takes of a scene, he's going to bring something different and equally surprising and inventive to every single one. I just adored working with him.
I had a lot to learn [laughs]. And it was wonderful. As an actor I tend to think with my body, and on a film it's all about your face, so I got yelled at a lot by directors of photography and continuity people saying, "Butz! Stop moving." So, I have a long way to go in terms of finding stillness on screen.
Yes, it was very evocative of the way I was raised and the way that my family still gets together: people everywhere! And Peter [Hedges], the director, really nailed that sense that it's incredibly hard to have a private moment in such a communal environment. That's all Steve's character is trying to do—find one space to have a private moment. I can very much relate to that. Growing up, I shared a bedroom with five brothers. We had three sets of bunk beds.
Yeah, well there are 11 of us kids! So it was quite the chaotic environment. But I loved it at the same time. My brothers and sisters are my best friends in the world. There are 31 nieces and nephews. I become a great-uncle this month. My nieces and nephews are having kids! So that makes me feel really old.
You know, it actually wasn't so much. I've always felt about 40 even when I was about 9. So, I kind of felt at the time that my age finally matched what my brain was doing.
Knew I was a star? [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] No. And I still haven't. That's the honest truth. And if I ever do, that's probably when I need to retire and go teach or sell flowers or something. There's a real danger, I think, in being too knowing about your own career. It's difficult to talk about. But, no, I never feel like I've made it because you never really have. You hear these phrases like, "You're only as good as your last job," and they're very, very true. The strike was a really interesting time. We had this great buzz and a couple of great previews and we were feeling very, very cocky with our little show. Then because of forces beyond our control, we were out of work—and scared to death. Really, it was a desperate time. And that's just one example out of many. So much is out of the actor's control in terms of being able to predict whether the work is going to keep on coming or continue to be well-received. I tend to do better by starting each new rehearsal—I literally do this—pretending I have just graduated from college and am making my debut in New York. I do. It's totally neurotic, but I have these fantasies about how it's the first thing I've ever done professionally, because I don't ever want to sit back and get comfortable with my work. I want to keep marching forward and surprising myself.
I noticed that I got invited to better parties than I had before. I started getting invited to movie premieres. It was, I guess, a change in myself more than outside forces. I got very, very scared to do the next thing. I thought, "Oh lord. The expectations are going to be so much higher," and put all sorts of undue pressure on myself. But, once again, you really can't do anything about it, and you just pray for a little grace and put yourself up against the wall and let them throw dodgeballs at you.
Yeah, I guess I am a little bit. Oh god, I am. Oh lord, she found me out in the first interview. She got right to the center of it!
What is hindsight? Hindsight is what? How does that phrase go?
At the time it incredibly difficult singing that score night after night. I was really, really stressed out about my voice. It was my first Broadway show and my first musical, professionally, ever. But I loved it. I just loved singing that music. I was lucky enough to understudy in the original company, so I got to feel that commitment the original cast had to [writer] Jonathan Larson's vision. I felt like I got to have a little part in that, so I look back very romantically on it.
Cabaret was a tough one for me, not that I don't look back on it gratefully. Alan Cumming had just had a huge, iconic performance and I was the first person to do the role after him in Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall's vision. Nobody knew who I was, so I dealt with some big self-confidence issues for several months of that tour. And I wasn't very good in it for a while. The comparisons were constantly thrown at me and I just sort of lost sense of myself. But it remains, I think, the greatest musical of all time. I think the book of that show is one of the most stunning pieces of writing of all time. It's incredible.
I do! I loved that show. Everybody hated it. "Thou Shouldn't Have" was the headline I remember the most. But it was such a great part and I worked with great people— [director/choreographer] Susan Stroman; Debra Monk played my mother. And I got to sing a song on stage at 8PM that Harry Connick had literally written at 11:00 that morning on a jog. The timing of it was terrible. We previewed during 9/11, and it was a very dark piece. It was sort of a big car wreck, but I loved it and it was comforting to me to know that you can be in a great, big Broadway bomb and still have the most wonderful time.
That was a really, really tough one. It has a great following now and in some ways has always been my favorite thing I've ever been a part of, but that's not to say it was easy. It was based on a real-life divorce and then I went through one at the end of it as well; it was a very, very sad time. So, it was a difficult show to do emotionally, but ultimately a really healing one at the same time.
No one mourns the Wicked! Yeah, say what you will about Wicked—the audiences went crazy about it and I met my wife on that show, so it's a huge favorite of mine, no matter what anybody says about "Dancing Through Life."
Ha. Scoundrels was just an embarrassment of riches. From Jack O'Brien, who is just a prince of New York theater; to [John] Lithgow, Sherie Scott and this dream cast; fantastic writers; and a role that I should have been put in jail for, it was so much fun. It's the most fun I've ever had without having it be illegal. It's true. It was really a blast.
Yeah, here we go! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a petticoat to put on…