Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

You could do a whole lot worse than being friends with a dude like Norbert Leo Butz.

He's hilarious and he does a lot of fun stuff, cool stuff. He's an actor, he's a singer,

he's a songwriter. He's won not one, but two Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Broadway musical.

He recently released a great album called The Long Hall.

He's a cool dude.

He's fun to hang around with.

And I got to hang around with him at his home in New Jersey.

We talked about all of these disciplines and how he approaches them.

And the thought he puts in to his work is impressive.

And in our discussion, it became obvious that the tool most important to him in all of these disciplines is empathy.

And I really love that because it's one thing that's come up a lot during the course of these wheels off discussions.

The importance of empathy, the importance of

seeing the other as equivalent to the self, you know, we are all one.

And Norbert not only sees that, but uses that to make great art.

And he's able to communicate so clearly about what it is he does

and how he does it so well. Not that he would necessarily put it like that. He's a pretty

humble guy. But he really does do a lot of different things at a really high level. And so it was so fun and cool to be able to sit and talk with him and pick his brain.

I'm sure you're going to find a lot to love about this wheels-off conversation with the great Norbert Leo Butts.

Thank you. Norbert Leo Butts. I'm joined on this episode of Wheels Off by the great Norbert Leo Butts.

Hi, Norbert.

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