"Better Nate Than Ever," Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
As a two-time Tony Award winner, Norbert Leo Butz is used to having a busy schedule. But rather than preparing for opening night, this week Butz is anticipating the release of two new shows: The Girl From Plainville on Hulu on March 29 and Better Nate Than Ever on Disney+ on April 1. Both feature Butz, and they couldn’t be more different.
The Girl From Plainville dramatizes the events that lead to the death of Conrad Roy III in July 2014, with Butz playing his father, Conrad "Co" Roy II. Butz again plays a father in Better Nate Than Ever, a musical about the titular Nate Foster as he looks to become a Broadway star.
We recently had the chance to talk to Butz about these performances, as well as his hometown roots and path to the stage and screen.
How did you first get into acting?
I grew up in St. Louis. I started, I guess, singing first. I'm from a really big musical family. There are 11 of us kids. There was always a piano around. My oldest brother, Steve, played guitar. So I think I started singing and playing when I was quite young, mostly in the church and school choir. Then around 13 or 14 my music teacher noticed I was able to sing and encouraged me to study privately. So I started taking my voice pretty seriously. I went out for the musical when I was in high school and just really got the bug. My older brothers and sisters would be in the play and I always thought that looked like so much fun. I ended up loving it. But I was a pretty shy kid. So I remember that I just really escaped into movies a lot. I love all kinds of movies, but the movie musicals I just thought were incredible. James Cagney and Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was obsessed with as a kid. The original West Side Story. Gene Kelly. All those films. I think somewhere in all of that, I started wanting to be a performer.
When did you realize it could actually be a job?
I can't remember a specific moment. I definitely remember, I was a senior in high school and I was doing The Music Man. I remember there was a moment when I was playing Harold Hill. I have to get married in the library, and there’s this big kiss at the end of the show. We were rehearsing it. I was 17 and some of the kids started laughing, you know, like kids do in school plays when you have to kiss. I remember turning around and going, ‘This is incredibly serious. We have to make this believable or nobody's going to believe the play!’ I remember getting really angry that kids weren't taking it as seriously as I was. That was a brand new feeling. The director of that musical was the first teacher who really said to me, “I think you should audition for college. You could do this.” I really needed to be told I could do it. I think I was too shy. There were no actors in the family. But I remember starting to take it very, very seriously. Then I went on and auditioned for Webster University. They prepare you for a professional career. By then I was starting to get really serious about it.
Was theater your first love?
I would say that movies and television were my first loves as a kid. I was really, really into escaping into movies. But being from the Midwest and growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the school play was really all that was really available. That’s all I knew, for many, many years. I didn't get in front of a camera until I was well into my 20s and even 30s.
How was the transition to TV and film?
It was a pretty steep learning curve, I have to say. I came to New York, not L.A., after school. I did a master's in acting as well, so there was a lot of Shakespeare and classical text. So I guess the biggest transition to film and TV is the lack of text. You start to get really used to words in theater. That is a writer's medium. Film is a director's medium. So I guess the biggest transition came from not worrying about the words as much and concentrating more about being in that frame. I'm a real physical performer. There's something kinetic about my energy. So I had to learn to be still. The camera doesn't want a whole lot of movement. It wants more stillness. That was definitely a learning curve. But I knew the way to have a longer career was to be able to do a bit of everything. What I've tried to do is diversify my portfolio.
What was your preparation for The Girl From Plainville?
It was a really difficult shoot. I read the article it’s based on. I saw the documentary. I just really concentrated on the source material. The character I play, he did not really want to be a part of the filming. So I couldn't really go directly to the family. Our creator, Liz Hannah, spent a great deal of time with the mother. I was able to relate to a lot of the dynamics of that family. Then everything went out the window on our first day of shooting. I’ll be honest with you, on our very first day of shooting, my mother passed away. So I rushed back to St. Louis. We had her funeral, then I went right back to work. I didn't use any of the research I did. I sort of forgot about it because I was so deeply in grief over my mom. So to be doing that show simultaneously was a very strange experience. It really informed me the whole time. It was a tough shoot, but I really did respond to that script very much. I really wanted to be a part of it. I've got three daughters. Two of them I've taken through their teenage years. One is about to enter them. So the whole idea of this as a cautionary tale about not just social media, but the dangers of the smartphone, stuff we didn't even consider a decade ago, I thought it was quite important.
You also have a small role in Better Nate Than Ever, how did that come about?
I actually just saw it yesterday in Los Angeles for the premiere. It's really delightful. These kids are phenomenal. It was just a really sweet little gig. I play the clueless dad. It's just a small part, but I couldn't wait to do it because my wife was cast as my wife on screen. So I got to go to work with her for three weeks. That was heaven. It was a full-circle moment, because we met doing the musical Wicked on Broadway. We fell in love there. We got married five years later. We have an 11-year-old daughter now. The producer of Better Nate Than Ever is Mark Platt, who worked on Wicked. So it was very sweet. I thought it was a little nod to the fans, as Nate is a huge Wicked fan in the movie. So us being the parents is like an inside joke for all the theater kids out there. It was a blast. I don't even sing in it. But the kids are fantastic. I think people are gonna just fall in love with this story.
What are you working on next?
I stay busy. I do. I guess I have a restless spirit. I do my own music as well. So I’m hard at work on this record that I've been working on for about a year and a half. It’s almost done. It's kind of a collaboration with my oldest daughter, who is 24 and is a wonderful songwriter. That will be released on a small Canadian label, I’m hoping sometime in May. Then I’m shooting in Chicago for a few weeks. I like to stay busy. It was always my intention to do this for the long haul, and I've been so lucky during the pandemic, because the theater really shut down, and I was able to stay busy with these different projects.
Do you get back to St Louis much?
We always come back. My family has a big plot of land in Crawford County, Missouri. It’s two hours west of St. Louis. We've got a few horses, a river bed nearby. I bring my kids, and that’s what we do every summer. Usually we come around the Fourth of July. All my siblings and I get together. It's really fantastic.
