Stage Siblings Katie Holmes and Norbert Leo Butz Bond Over Ice Cream and Chili Dogs in Dead Accounts

Katie Holmes has picked up quite the unhealthy habit as she prepares for her Broadway return. The Dead Accounts star is loading up on ice cream and chili dogs, but not to worry...it's all in the name of art! Holmes and her co-star Norbert Leo Butz have been chowing down on the junk food during rehearsals for a scene from the new Theresa Rebeck play.

“We’re terrified that we’re all going to look like Man Mountain Dean by time these rehearsals are done,” the show's director Jack O’Brien joked, referring to the early 1900s wrestler, famous for his size. “[The play] starts with Norbert and Katie staring at eight kinds of Graeter’s ice cream, because the play takes place in Cincinnati [where the ice cream brand is made]. It’s outrageous ice cream! They also eat chili cheese dogs. It’s all this Mid-western junk food. We’re terrified that everyone’s going to put on too much weight. But we’re having a ball.”

O'Brien also noted that Holmes and Butz, who play brother and sister in Dead Accounts, are having no trouble finding a sibling bond in rehearsal.  “The other day I said, ‘This is so odd, you have the same nose!’" O'Briend said of the duo. "We started to laugh because they do. She has the beautiful woman version of his sort of pug nose. They are like brother and sister.”

Dead Accounts revolves around Jack (Butz), whose sudden return home throws his family—including sister Lorna (Holmes) and mother Barbara (Jayne Houdyshell)—into full crisis mode. The new comedy begins preview performances on November 3 at the Music Box Theatre, with opening night scheduled for November 29.