Milling About

Norbert Leo Butz stars in “The Girl From Plainville,” now streaming on Hulu as Conrad Roy, the father of Coco (Colton Ryan). In this true tragic story, he commits suicide egged on by encouraging texts from his girlfriend Michelle Carter (Elle Fanning). In our conversation, Butz talks about bonding with Ryan over their shared love of theater, how being a father of daughters played into the role, diving deep into the emotional moments of his character, and offers his unique view of parenting and suicide. He tells host Robin Milling,  “The stigma and the shame of parental failure is a false narrative that needs to be extracted from the culture. I like that the film takes a stab that mental illness is a human problem and is so multi-faceted. No one person takes the blame.”