Profile
From Millburn to
Norbert Leo Butz of Netflix ' s Bloodline
WRITTEN BY JO VARNISH
Two-time Tony Award winning actor Norbert Leo Butz iscurrently appearing as Kevin Rayburn inNetflix ' s Bloodline and as Dr. Byron Hale in Mercy Street on PBS. Butz sat down with us at Millburn ' s Rock ' n ' Joe ' s restaurant the day before he left tobegin shooting the final season of Bloodline in the Florida Keys.
Butz made what heterms the‘ great migration’ from Brooklyn to Millburn in 2000 with his then-wife and two daughters, and then moved to Maplewood in 2005. Acomplete convert to the suburbs, hesays,“ I am single-handedly responsible for probably 25 people moving out here, friends of mine, lots ofactors and musicians. They come tovisit and look atthe square footage of your bathroom and they’ re like“ Oh, Iwant this!” He adds:“ I love where Ilive for the great schools, the great communities, but Ialso love it as a point of departure, that Ican be in the Poconos in an hour, or on the beach in forty minutes. For our family, we can just have more spontaneity and Ilove that.”
Butz made his Broadway debut in Rent in 1996, and went on to star in other Broadway shows including Catch Me If YouCan, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Wicked.
“ Between stage jobs, Iwould always do alittle guest spot here or a small film there,” he says, but still the transition totelevision was achal- lenge.“ On stage, you have tomake yourself larger than life, and film is just the opposite, especially when the camera gets very close up, so it took me alittle while to make friends with
COURTESY OFTOM SINGER