Norbert Leo Butz made a splash with his Tony-winning turn in Broadway’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in 2005, and has alternated between musicals and dramas in New York, including Enron, Fifty Words, Saved, The Last Five Years, Is He Dead? and Catch Me If You Can (which got him another Tony). He stars as Uncle Peck in a revival of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive at NYC’s Second Stage Theatre, starting Jan. 24.

Did you see the Off-Broadway premiere of How I Learned to Drive back in 1997?

I’ve never seen a production of it. I read it years ago, and have been mildly obsessed with it for years. When it was published, I read it to see what the hoopla was about, and I was incredibly moved. I found it to be unlike anything I’d ever read; it was about such dark, potentially tragic material, but it was infused with so much humor and love and tenderness. That juxtaposition was mind-blowing.

How do you humanize a pedophile?

As I read the play, what distinguishes Uncle Peck is not his criminality—it’s actually his goodness and his gentleness. Paula doesn’t excuse or defend his actions, but she does challenge the audience to see him as a full, complex human. And the play is about as perfectly written a play as I’ve ever read—the structure of it is just beautiful, and the language is intoxicating. With a play that good, I’m a lot less daunted than when I’m working on something that’s not quite finished yet. I’ve done a lot of new plays and new musicals, and those are harder when the thing’s not quite done and you have to sort of help it along. This play sings on its own, and I think my job largely is going to be letting the audience hear it, purely.

You have three daughters. How old are they?

My girls are 14, 11 and 1.

Will you let them see the play?

I don’t think so. Part of me is curious what my teenager would think, because she is a growing young woman. But I think it’s a little outside of her digestibility at this point. Maybe I’ll take them to the Lincoln Center Library and show them the tape at some later date.

What’s your first theatrical memory?

Two really big ones: I must have been about 10, and my parents took us to see A Christmas Carol at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. The director chose to have Scrooge out on stage before the show started, heavily concentrating on counting his money and writing in his book. I was transfixed with this actor alone on stage, acting as if no one was in the audience; I kept turning around to people and telling them to be quiet. Couldn’t they see that there was a man on stage working? I couldn’t differentiate between the stage and real life.

Also, the first musical I saw, at probably 11 or 12 years old, was Patti LaBelle in a touring production of Your Arms Too Short to Box with God. It just knocked me off my feet. I wanted to be in theatre, and I wanted to be black.

You got one of those wishes. But you do seem to alternate between plays and musicals. How do you pull that off?

I guess it’s innate to me. I did my BFA at Webster University on the campus of Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, then my MFA at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, so I was a member of resident acting companies, where you have a whole season filled with classics and musicals and kids’ shows and contemporary dramas. It’s not like being in an L.A. or a New York casting pool; I don’t think of myself as a funny man or a character actor or a leading man—I wish I did, because I’d probably make more money. But people have always offered me the opportunity to have a range.

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?

I never make resolutions; I like to keep my expectations very low, because I’ve disappointed myself many, many times. I will say that I am thrilled that about a year and a half ago, when my dad started having some really bad health problems due to his smoking, I quit smoking—I smoked for 22 years. It’s been 15 months now since I’ve had a cigarette.

Congratulations. Now that you don’t smoke, what are your pre-show rituals?

I always go onto my set before a play. I just sit there and remind myself of where the play takes place. I might shut my eyes and be quiet for a bit. I have a really crazy, noisy home life, so I always say I come to the theatre to relax—it’s my time off from my real job.

What are you reading right now?

I almost hate to say this, because it’s going to make me sound like a research-y person, which I’m not, but I’m a big fan of Russell Banks, and so I’m reading Lost Memory of Skin. It’s a fascinating portrait of a pedophile living in a community of sex offenders under a bypass in southern Florida. I’m just loving it so far. It’s a very strange coincidence; I ordered the book on Kindle before I got the part of Uncle Peck.