Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work? Did you examine
Speaker 1: it somewhere? I've examined it. I checked out. My guest
Speaker 1: today is magician David Blaine. He arrived at our studio
Speaker 1: ready to astonish. Even before we began our interview, he
Speaker 1: pulled out an ice pick and began poking it through
Speaker 1: his hands. Actually for ship. The pick is four inches
Speaker 1: long and David Blaine is pushing it through the backside
Speaker 1: of his hand through Yeah. Years ago, Blaine got an
Speaker 1: m r I to locate the spot in his hand
Speaker 1: where a puncture would do the least damage, but there's
Speaker 1: no glove. David Blaine's stunts pushed the limits of the
Speaker 1: human body. He held his breath for over seventeen minutes.
Speaker 1: He spent thirty five hours on a hundred foot high
Speaker 1: pillar with no harness. He encased himself in a six
Speaker 1: ton block of ice for sixty three hours. He was
Speaker 1: buried alive for a week, and he went without food,
Speaker 1: hanging in a plexiglass box near Tower Bridge in London
Speaker 1: for forty four days. At the heart of these stunts
Speaker 1: is an obsession with magic that began innocently as early
Speaker 1: as the age of four. I remember holding a deck
Speaker 1: of cards, carrying it, treating it like it was an
Speaker 1: amazing object, carrying it everywhere that I went. And I
Speaker 1: didn't really know what magic was at that point, but
Speaker 1: having the cards was the beginning of me entering that
Speaker 1: world basically, And how does the four year old child
Speaker 1: enter that world with, like with their games you bought?
Speaker 1: Were there things? Now, I'll explain it. We grew up
Speaker 1: really poor, so my mother and bok, yeah, my mother
Speaker 1: raised me as a single mother, working multiple jobs. She
Speaker 1: actually grew up with a really wealthy family. And when
Speaker 1: she was eighteen, she was living at the Sharon Nedland
Speaker 1: with her family that was the head of the Jewish mafia,
Speaker 1: one of the top families that was on like the
Speaker 1: cover of Time Life magazine, all these crazy things, and
Speaker 1: she felt that that that the whole family and all
Speaker 1: the corruption was really bad. And eventually, at age eighteen,
Speaker 1: she tried to kill herself. So she went to rehab
Speaker 1: and she had kind of a coming of age, and
Speaker 1: she moved to Brooklyn, never to really speak to her
Speaker 1: family for the most part again. And then she met
Speaker 1: my biological father. She met him in a nondenominational church
Speaker 1: and when they fell him love, he immediately got shipped
Speaker 1: to Vietnam. So she waited for him. Where was he from?
Speaker 1: He was Puerto Rican in a mixture of other things,
Speaker 1: and didn't know him too. I only met him a
Speaker 1: couple of times. So they fell in love. He got
Speaker 1: sent off to Vietnam, and when he came back, as
Speaker 1: many of the soldiers, he had witnessed things there that
Speaker 1: completely destroyed it, like he saw his close friend get
Speaker 1: hung up on a tree alive and gutted, and all
Speaker 1: these terrible things. When he came back, my mother had
Speaker 1: waited him for him, and he was having nightmares and
Speaker 1: waking up with violent you know, screaming, yelling, breaking. So
Speaker 1: she got pregnant. When she told him a few months
Speaker 1: later that she was pregnant, at that point, he looked
Speaker 1: at her and said, I don't want to see you anymore,
Speaker 1: and he left. So that was it, and my mother
Speaker 1: put everything everything that she had into me. We lived
Speaker 1: in a sixth story walk up. We started in Flatbush
Speaker 1: and we went to Park Slope and it wasn't what
Speaker 1: it is today, you know. It Aged three, my biological
Speaker 1: father showed up. I was ringing the doorbell because I
Speaker 1: guess he wanted to see me and maybe her, And
Speaker 1: when she came downstairs, he punched her in the nose,
Speaker 1: broke her nose and everything like that. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like my first jarring and you know, terrible memory
Speaker 1: of things. But anyway, at around the age of four,
Speaker 1: her mother had given her a Tarot deck of playing cards.
Speaker 1: It was a regular deck of cards with Tarot images
Speaker 1: on it, and she gave it to me and I
Speaker 1: cherished this deck of cards and carried it everywhere. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing that my mother did is when she had time,
Speaker 1: she would always take me to museums, libraries, bookstore, everything
Speaker 1: that she could, just to educate me and show me
Speaker 1: other things, which was way more valuable than any of
Speaker 1: the toys that i've you know, you could ever give
Speaker 1: or get. And so I would wa for her at
Speaker 1: the library and a librarian that was working there showed
Speaker 1: me the simple self working mathematical book of Magic Tricks.
Speaker 1: Using that deck of cards, I always said, So I
Speaker 1: learned something very simple, and when my mother showed up,
Speaker 1: I did this to her and she went crazy like
Speaker 1: she had witnessed real magic. And that was the beginning
Speaker 1: of the love for performing and learning more. And continually thought,
Speaker 1: if I could just get a Vegas lounge filled with
Speaker 1: people like my mother, then I'd be said. But the
Speaker 1: other thing that happened was I was also born with
Speaker 1: my feet turned in, so yeah, but really bad. So
Speaker 1: I had leg braces and it's like Forrest Gump and
Speaker 1: I had leg braces and things like that. So when
Speaker 1: you're in Brooklyn without a dad and you're alone a lot,
Speaker 1: and you can't run and you can't be athletic, you escape. No,
Speaker 1: that's part of it, but you're also picked on because
Speaker 1: when I wasn't at the library waiting for her to
Speaker 1: finish on days that she was working later, I would
Speaker 1: go to the y m c A. And I was
Speaker 1: on the swim team. So I couldn't beat the kids
Speaker 1: swimming because my legs didn't and they still don't actually,
Speaker 1: but they didn't work perfectly. So in order to beat everybody,
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't breathe. So at the age of five,
Speaker 1: I learned that, you know, they have to turn their
Speaker 1: head like this to breathe. There I would just swim
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't breathe. So I started to at a
Speaker 1: very young age build up this inforance yeah, or this
Speaker 1: ability to just use your brain to override the pain basically,
Speaker 1: and I would win. And then if it was two laps,
Speaker 1: I would hold for two laps. So at the age
Speaker 1: of five, I started to get really good at these
Speaker 1: types of things. Now I started to play games with
Speaker 1: the kids, so I would challenge them. I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll stand the water and you can stand the water,
Speaker 1: and then when you go up, you can come down,
Speaker 1: go up, come down, go up five times. So eventually
Speaker 1: I was like that kid that could hold my breath
Speaker 1: under water while they would hold their breath, go up
Speaker 1: for a breath, come back down, go up. Come But
Speaker 1: but but I didn't even understand that the science of
Speaker 1: it was that makes it very difficult when you go
Speaker 1: up and go down, go up there, it wastes a
Speaker 1: lot of O two. So that was kind of at
Speaker 1: the beginning. And do you hold the record? Now? I
Speaker 1: had it, but it was taken away. Um, it was
Speaker 1: taken away by a friend of mine, Tom Z this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I became friends with him through through the breath
Speaker 1: hold when I did it on Oh Well, that's where
Speaker 1: I did it for the world record, But the first
Speaker 1: time I did it was at Lincoln Center and I
Speaker 1: did it live on my ABC television show. So I
Speaker 1: held my breath and I was just going for the
Speaker 1: straight non PuO two breath hold record, which means you
Speaker 1: don't breathe puero two first, you just purge really hard
Speaker 1: and then take a deep breath and hold. And the
Speaker 1: record at that time was nine oh eight, and I thought,
Speaker 1: for some reason I would build up a tolerance and
Speaker 1: and some help pull it off. But I cracked at
Speaker 1: seven and thirty. So then I went back and I
Speaker 1: did the on Oprah. I did too, yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: a different world record, but that one I knew I
Speaker 1: could get. And the perro too, makes a big difference, Officer, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And when you do when you hold your breath for
Speaker 1: seventeen minutes and four seconds, like towards the end, are
Speaker 1: you blacking out? Are you punching a table to try
Speaker 1: to keep yourself going? It depends, And I mean sometimes
Speaker 1: it's really peaceful and amazing. When everything is just right,
Speaker 1: you kind of go somewhere else. But when things are
Speaker 1: falling apart, it becomes layer after layer, and it gets
Speaker 1: worse and worse, and you're trying not to black out,
Speaker 1: and the pain is building up, and you think you're
Speaker 1: going into cardiac arrest and you're fighting. So when it's
Speaker 1: not perfect, it becomes really bad. But when it's perfect,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those amazing meditatives' assuming it was
Speaker 1: perfect done open because you did seventeen minutes. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was pretty good, but it started really bad. It was
Speaker 1: better at the end when I actually realized that I
Speaker 1: made it and I wasn't, you know, going into cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1: But the whole experience of it was was pretty brutal.
Speaker 1: So the Deck of Cards four years old, your mother
Speaker 1: is the beginning, if you will, of a sense of
Speaker 1: the power of magic. Yeah, her reactions and and holding
Speaker 1: your breath and pool was when you first pigan to
Speaker 1: embrace endurance capabilities and the advantages that could give you.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I was also in the
Speaker 1: library and I would be looking at other books on magic.
Speaker 1: So you see images of guys like Houdini or specifically
Speaker 1: Houdini dangling from the side of a building and you
Speaker 1: look at this man chained up to the side of
Speaker 1: a building. You don't have a father figure, like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: this is really crazy. So I would go to sleep
Speaker 1: at that young age and I'd have dreams of these
Speaker 1: things that I'd seen on these books. And what Houdini
Speaker 1: was doing was kind of similar because he was doing
Speaker 1: things that you knew were real. Even at that young age,
Speaker 1: you could see it and you know it's not an illusion.
Speaker 1: When you're four years old and you have the magic
Speaker 1: book and you're doing the tricks to to go to
Speaker 1: the level you're at, it's instruction involved. How do you
Speaker 1: go to the next level after being the four year
Speaker 1: old boy with the deck of cards in a book.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, it's only books. It was a different
Speaker 1: day and age. That's how you learned. You learned from reading.
Speaker 1: That went on for how long, um, until the age
Speaker 1: of eleven? Did you have a mentor? No? My mother
Speaker 1: called my great aunt who sent a check to her
Speaker 1: for a couple hundred bucks so I could go to
Speaker 1: some magic camp for a week, Tannin's Magic Camp. I
Speaker 1: went there and in Long Island, where your friend, and
Speaker 1: I entered the competition and I won. So I had
Speaker 1: all this confidence as a kid, and I started doing
Speaker 1: little parties and shows, but I never performed really for
Speaker 1: my peers, and not other than my best friends. Nobody
Speaker 1: knew I did magic, and it wasn't you could have
Speaker 1: been I mean, these are all trips. You could have
Speaker 1: been the life of the party. Yeah, but back then
Speaker 1: and the kids are like, oh, you're some weird though,
Speaker 1: so it's not. It's the opposite. It's like, get the hell, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's something weird, you know, you're a nerdy or so.
Speaker 1: So I kind of kept it to myself pretty much.
Speaker 1: And uh, at around the age of eighteen, I started
Speaker 1: performing with it where um all over New York. Really.
Speaker 1: I would just I'd be walking off the deck of cards,
Speaker 1: shuffling cards in my hand, and like the guys you
Speaker 1: know that they were the parking garage would see me
Speaker 1: and they'd react to just a simple shuffle I was practicing.
Speaker 1: So I'd go and do magic and I would get
Speaker 1: all these amazing reactions from people, and it was addicting.
Speaker 1: Who was at the top of the heap when you
Speaker 1: were a kid, when you first became aware they're they're
Speaker 1: just amazing magicians. But they're not doing talk. They're not known,
Speaker 1: but they're incredible, so they would just do these in
Speaker 1: their private world. Now, yeah, well they'd all meet at
Speaker 1: this little deli in New York and like the Earl
Speaker 1: in ninety it was called Rubens. It was on Madison
Speaker 1: even thirty eight, and it was you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was not the deli that they would let us meet.
Speaker 1: It was the back room of a deli and all
Speaker 1: these yeah, none of the seriously, none of them. But
Speaker 1: the people in the deli were happy because they like magic.
Speaker 1: So the magicians do stuff, and the and the magicians
Speaker 1: were you know more. Green Grass of course went to
Speaker 1: school with Bney, but do you ever hang out with him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He knew all my relatives, so eventually, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: funny though, those are the thing. And then my great
Speaker 1: aunt when, uh, when the one that put me to
Speaker 1: magic camp, that paid give that gave my mother that
Speaker 1: or when so when when I started to make you
Speaker 1: know a little money, because I was on TV here
Speaker 1: and there, which my great aunt at a hundred years
Speaker 1: old living in San Antonio, Texas thought was, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, this incredibly rich guy would order from body
Speaker 1: from Barney green Grass from the sun Gary every other week.
Speaker 1: And she's alone in San Antonio and this little oh
Speaker 1: and and everything you can take up a stray and
Speaker 1: locks and this and that filth everybody they ship it
Speaker 1: down there. Once. I showed up when she died. When
Speaker 1: she died, I came there the next day to handle everything.
Speaker 1: And I get there and again she lives alone at
Speaker 1: A hundred and three. When she died, lives alone. I
Speaker 1: get there and the next day a huge FedEx arise
Speaker 1: from party gree Grass and it's, you know, loaded with
Speaker 1: this insane amount of food that nobody could eat them.
Speaker 1: When you do a show in the world of magic
Speaker 1: or illusion or whatever you want to call it, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you, what do you call it magic?
Speaker 1: I mean, I just like the word magic because it's
Speaker 1: a general term and it's easy. Yeah, people get it.
Speaker 1: So when you when you when you think of Houdini escaping,
Speaker 1: because a lot of his was escape, ustry is that
Speaker 1: dute is very very simple and easy. Now have things advanced,
Speaker 1: and now because that guy put so much in so
Speaker 1: what he was doing it was about like just being tough,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I think he was very
Speaker 1: tough and willing to go through whatever the hell it took.
Speaker 1: So it's like very few people have that kind of
Speaker 1: tolerance to this day. I mean even if your physical pain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was just tough. I'm assuming he would be because
Speaker 1: you're a very physically powerfully built person. Not right now, Well,
Speaker 1: is there an exercise regiment throughout your career you've had
Speaker 1: to do in order to have the strength, because a
Speaker 1: lot of these things require tremendous strength. Big time, you're
Speaker 1: standing on a beam, for you were up there thirty
Speaker 1: six hours hours? How is that on your body? Well,
Speaker 1: that you don't. When I was a little kid in
Speaker 1: school and I get in trouble and the teacher would say,
Speaker 1: go stand in the corner, It's like, come on, this
Speaker 1: is easy. Like you stand for forty five minutes. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be hard. So yeah, and then you can
Speaker 1: apply that. So it's like how long can you stand
Speaker 1: in one place? So that's really what it's about. So
Speaker 1: I would practice to standing in one place, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'd put a chair somewhere and to stand on and
Speaker 1: see how long I could do things like that. But
Speaker 1: in order to prepare for an event. No, well, I
Speaker 1: mean there's a training involved. Yeah. No, When it comes
Speaker 1: to something like that, I would I build really heavy
Speaker 1: weight vests or chain mail things like that, and I
Speaker 1: would just climb stairs, so I'd add sixty pounds, run upstairs,
Speaker 1: go jogging around the park, do all these things, and
Speaker 1: I would hide it to no one city. But you
Speaker 1: build up a real a real tolerance and a real
Speaker 1: strength and an ability to endure anything. And with a
Speaker 1: body that you put through those things, especially the breath
Speaker 1: holding thing, I'm going to assume it. You don't have
Speaker 1: to answer this question that there's a whole menu of
Speaker 1: things you just don't do. You know, smoke, you don't
Speaker 1: take drugs, you don't take alcohol? Or are you a
Speaker 1: little more liberal? I go through extremes, so when I'm
Speaker 1: in training, I guess. So when I'm training, I'm like extremely,
Speaker 1: I eat by the buy a clock and buy a scale.
Speaker 1: But when I'm on the other extreme, I'll have like
Speaker 1: you know the opening of the movie, I have another
Speaker 1: ship that one. But there's a supreme discipline and then
Speaker 1: you let it drop. Right, It's an extreme on both ends.
Speaker 1: As you're getting older, is it tougher to do not
Speaker 1: old but no, no, but I you know, you feel
Speaker 1: the difference, and it's it's it's definitely noticeable. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's more work put in, but it doesn't feel more difficult.
Speaker 1: One of the things I read is your desire to
Speaker 1: do some sleep deprivation endurance record. Correct. I've been obsessed
Speaker 1: with that one. Why just because it's so difficult. It's
Speaker 1: a thing during every endurance thing that I've done, it's
Speaker 1: always a sleep deprivation. That's ultimately the most difficult part.
Speaker 1: I mean, sleep deprivation for me has really had a
Speaker 1: tremendous impact on my body. For me, at least, I struggle.
Speaker 1: I have a terrible problem sleeping. Although they say, like
Speaker 1: Edison and Lincoln, a couple of guys used to take
Speaker 1: naps um throughout the day, so they would only sleep
Speaker 1: a couple of hours a night, but they would take
Speaker 1: fifteen minute naps and Edison would hold like a set
Speaker 1: of keys in his hand, so if he nodded off,
Speaker 1: he dropped the keys and would wake him up, and
Speaker 1: that proved to be very effective. So I think there's
Speaker 1: there's different ways to well. I'm in a different business
Speaker 1: to Edison and Lincoln. Warren and those guys, actually they
Speaker 1: looked like ship. They really looked terrible. They look wasted, tired, haggard.
Speaker 1: But I think it's not especially he looked like But
Speaker 1: I think there is a way to build a good sleeper. Um,
Speaker 1: what's your normal constitution? Like borderline narcalyptic? You are, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I wake up every morning at like five am.
Speaker 1: And even if I'm up like yeah, I just wake
Speaker 1: up one one at the crack of dumb. But um,
Speaker 1: I nod off very easily, like I could easily just
Speaker 1: lights out and that's it. And I mean made conversation
Speaker 1: with all of my friends or at meetings, I'll just
Speaker 1: not off right. And so my friends said to me
Speaker 1: that he was a makeup artist and a hairdresser in
Speaker 1: the movie business, and he said he worked with Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Taylor and she would go to this place at the
Speaker 1: Clinic of Jovenetta in the Italian Alps, and they would
Speaker 1: go there and eliminate tobacco, alcohol, salt, sugar, caffeine. They
Speaker 1: ate this very restricted diet. And these people would go
Speaker 1: there and you would just pass out numb from exhaustion,
Speaker 1: like every afterno like two o'clock and sleep to five
Speaker 1: wake up, have dinner, go back past out at nine thirty,
Speaker 1: sleep ten hours. You just slept for a month. And
Speaker 1: when the month was over she lost thirty pounds. It
Speaker 1: was a weight loss probably feel amazing. It was a
Speaker 1: weight loss clinic and there and the key to their
Speaker 1: weight lost thing was to induced just this ridiculous amount.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the diet part is amazing too though, Like
Speaker 1: we're taking away salt, sugar and all that stuff that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it makes your body function that much better. What's
Speaker 1: your weakness? Food? Was David Blaine the farest pizza. Luckily
Speaker 1: it's in Brooklyn, sitting. Now, where's your mom? She passed
Speaker 1: away the best win. She got sick when a sixteen,
Speaker 1: and she fought for a couple of years. What was
Speaker 1: that like for you? I mean, obviously terrible, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was the most difficult thing I for
Speaker 1: when you were sixteen. I mean, she hadn't made The
Speaker 1: day she told me, no, no, no, The day she
Speaker 1: told me she had cancer, you know, I was magic
Speaker 1: was my dream. And I remember I started crying and
Speaker 1: I said, like, if I could just I'll cut my
Speaker 1: arms off right now to get rid of your cancer.
Speaker 1: The one thing she was concerned with and she said this,
Speaker 1: uh to one of the hospice nurses before she that,
Speaker 1: she said, my my, my, my only worry is that
Speaker 1: my son is always going to be alone. So that
Speaker 1: was kind of like that if I could have proven right, well,
Speaker 1: I have a daughter now, so so that is it
Speaker 1: hard for you to have with with the work. You
Speaker 1: do have half brother, but work, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: he's around, he's around, and he's amazing and he's great.
Speaker 1: But you find it's difficult with what you do. Describe
Speaker 1: your life. Are you on a plane constantly and yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to David Blaine is going from like
Speaker 1: always traveling, oh non style. How has that affected your life? Um,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult. You get used to it, but it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tricky because you never have like a base anywhere.
Speaker 1: David Blaine says magicians are lonely. No one wants to
Speaker 1: it up with me, he claims, maybe not quite, no one.
Speaker 1: We're doing our time together. Blaine is the first to
Speaker 1: pull out his phone to share kid videos. I never
Speaker 1: taught her, Alex. She just started doing it. So okay, okay,
Speaker 1: don't call anybody. Okay, everybody can see your assistant. No, no no,
Speaker 1: she's forget assistem. I'll probably work for her. Crazy. For
Speaker 1: more conversation about children with people like Chris Kardashian, check
Speaker 1: out our archives. I feel like the luckiest woman in
Speaker 1: the world because I get to get up every single
Speaker 1: day and I work with my kids and my family,
Speaker 1: and I mean get more controlling than that. Take a
Speaker 1: listen that Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. David Blaine
Speaker 1: is known for his TV specials and endurance stunts. Until recently,
Speaker 1: he stayed away from the kind of show you might
Speaker 1: see in Vegas. I do shows, but they're I doom
Speaker 1: on occasion. When did you first play a big venue?
Speaker 1: When did you first play a venue that you told
Speaker 1: yourself this is things have changed? Um, well, I've I've
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of little things, but recently I
Speaker 1: just started building a tour. So I started playing like
Speaker 1: eight and ten thousand seaters and things like that, um
Speaker 1: around the world, not in America, and I've just been
Speaker 1: testing out how to make things work. But it's been
Speaker 1: really delicate for me because it's I've always had a
Speaker 1: big vision as far as doing one of those shows.
Speaker 1: So I never wanted to build an illusion show. I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to do things where an illusion show
Speaker 1: would be a Houdini type show. No, no, well he
Speaker 1: incorporated no, but he would do illusionists that you're alluding to.
Speaker 1: Who else does allus? I mean just any show where
Speaker 1: it's like magic, you know, uh, like the it's trickery.
Speaker 1: So basically, at the end of the day, as beautiful
Speaker 1: as it is, it's not real. Whereas when Houdini would
Speaker 1: dangle upside down in a water tank, you knew he
Speaker 1: was risking his life. I think that was interesting. So
Speaker 1: I think all the skills that I've been working on
Speaker 1: for since the beginning of you know, my interest in magic,
Speaker 1: we're trying. I'm trying to put all those together into
Speaker 1: one evening. Can I show you just a little So
Speaker 1: this is what I'm working I should probably slide over
Speaker 1: to you. So this is the show I've been building,
Speaker 1: and and it has everything is very simple. There's no props,
Speaker 1: there's you know, I have a T shirt of nothing,
Speaker 1: I bring some kerosene, I drank a gown of water. Um.
Speaker 1: This is all over Asia and South Africa, so when
Speaker 1: you're doing that kind of work, is it all like
Speaker 1: a grand stage kind of illusion things that people can
Speaker 1: readily see or their cameras on you like, like basically
Speaker 1: what I was talking about. I try to do things
Speaker 1: that are real and magic. So I go, you know,
Speaker 1: I do use a camera and project things, but I
Speaker 1: also will drink, you know, a glass full of kerosene,
Speaker 1: a gown of water, light of fire on the stage
Speaker 1: and then put it out, or I'll hold my breath
Speaker 1: for ten to fifteen minutes and the water tank on
Speaker 1: the stage and um, like the ice picked thing that
Speaker 1: I did to y'all do that. So I mix it up,
Speaker 1: so it's the concept is real or magic's happening to
Speaker 1: entertain the audience. Are they like their bartenders like? Are
Speaker 1: their waiters like distributing drinks to the ground while you're
Speaker 1: holding your breath. They're right right on you. The way
Speaker 1: I used to do was in the beginning, it started
Speaker 1: with an act where I would do a'd be underwater
Speaker 1: and I would do all these magic things underwater, like
Speaker 1: I'd smoke a cigar underwater, I would have an eel
Speaker 1: come out of my mouth. I would do all of
Speaker 1: these things. But it started taking away from that, I'm
Speaker 1: actually holding my breath the entire time. So basically what
Speaker 1: we did is we took all of that away and
Speaker 1: just made it about the actual feet of endurance and
Speaker 1: let them walk around and feel it and see if
Speaker 1: it's real and interact with it, and that became much
Speaker 1: more effective. So it was kind of like when you
Speaker 1: see a guy that's risking his life for that entire
Speaker 1: duration and if you believe that he's really not breathing,
Speaker 1: that stands on its own without the actual tricks. So
Speaker 1: it was it's playing with that line of like how
Speaker 1: far can you push yourself before you crack? Live in
Speaker 1: front of an audience that I'm intrigued by. The Delian
Speaker 1: Delian Madison was called one again Rubens and you and
Speaker 1: are you a Magic Castle person? Have you hung out there?
Speaker 1: I have friends have friends that performed there and described
Speaker 1: to people what kind of a function that service. It's
Speaker 1: a private club. Yeah, there's a bunch of amazing magicians
Speaker 1: that you know that hang out there and socialize there.
Speaker 1: But so when people come, they get to see these
Speaker 1: improvisational sort of improvisational magic shows. It's pretty amazing. If
Speaker 1: I went there years ago. But it depends you know
Speaker 1: who's there. So if it's like if people are lucky
Speaker 1: to see like Derek, they'll Gaudio and uh and Garrett
Speaker 1: Thomas or some of these guys performed there, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like WHOA, there might be a lot of people
Speaker 1: who you know the same. In my business, there's journeyman
Speaker 1: actors who are doing regional theater who are the great
Speaker 1: undiscovered actors. You know, they don't have big careers in
Speaker 1: film and TV, but but they're phenomenal. They just they
Speaker 1: just crushed the big time. So there's guys out there
Speaker 1: who are famous, amazing, but that you'll never know. Is
Speaker 1: it because there's only room for so many Do you
Speaker 1: think it's only so many seats at a table up
Speaker 1: there at the top. No, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: just think like there's different things to work on. Like
Speaker 1: a lot of magicians complain about Houdini's showmanship skills during
Speaker 1: his lifetime because I say, all, I could do that better,
Speaker 1: I could do this. But Houdini was a showman, so
Speaker 1: he was kind of thinking about the the bigger picture
Speaker 1: in certain senses. So there are guys that could do
Speaker 1: much better slight of hand than him, or could could
Speaker 1: do moves that were better routines, But he was thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, the actual showmanship of on a bigger scale.
Speaker 1: So before you go out, whether it's on Oprah, any
Speaker 1: kind of endurance event you've done, exhibition, any show you've done,
Speaker 1: whatever you've done, is there a state you have to enter?
Speaker 1: Is there a regiment you adhere to to get your mind?
Speaker 1: Because I would imagine you have to have the most
Speaker 1: intense level of concentration known to man, right, which is
Speaker 1: why I do so few like I do such little
Speaker 1: things because when I go into something, I put everything into.
Speaker 1: You know, the movie Houdini is it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful movie. It's enjoyable, but it's a little shiny. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's Tony Curtis and Janet Lee and the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But there are moments that are thrilling, and and you
Speaker 1: carry into it your obsession with Houdini and a man
Speaker 1: that did those kinds of things back then. And there
Speaker 1: are intimations in that world of the supernatural where they've
Speaker 1: got some kind of otherworldly dial tone that they're making
Speaker 1: their phone calls on there that you and I that
Speaker 1: other people don't have. Yeah, that's the movies, right, right,
Speaker 1: that's the movies. So in real life to you, it's
Speaker 1: all reality and it's all technical and it's all your
Speaker 1: hard work and there's nothing anything that's done in that world. No,
Speaker 1: that's the stuff I'm most interesting. Is I like the
Speaker 1: idea that like anything that I do, anybody could do
Speaker 1: you really believe that? Okay, does your religion come into
Speaker 1: playing any way in your life? I mean that that's
Speaker 1: a good question. So the last thing my mother said
Speaker 1: before she died was God is love, and I kind
Speaker 1: of I think that that that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: look at it as I look at you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of have blind faith in a weird way. It's
Speaker 1: funny though, because I'm so skeptical of everything. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's like I feel my mother there
Speaker 1: when things are going really bad. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I'm at now, you know, in in terms of
Speaker 1: my life, it's become so um uh so spiritual. But
Speaker 1: you know, I actually just thought about something. I do
Speaker 1: think that, like what you do is very like what
Speaker 1: you said, is it is it real? Or do you
Speaker 1: think the powers are real? And I think part of
Speaker 1: being a really good showman is a magician is similar
Speaker 1: to acting because I think you kind of have to
Speaker 1: believe that what you're doing is magical while you're doing it.
Speaker 1: So I think part of it is you play into that,
Speaker 1: that commitment to this thing actually being magical. You are
Speaker 1: a solo act, correct, you've never partnered with anyone, You've
Speaker 1: never performed with anyone. No, But when I when I
Speaker 1: was doing my tour, I have a different Magicians do
Speaker 1: magic while I was breathing pure oxygen getting ready to
Speaker 1: go into the tank. So when you're shooting a project,
Speaker 1: when you're making a film, like as we're sitting here
Speaker 1: right now, we're being filmed, what's the conflict for you?
Speaker 1: If any when you are being told by people and
Speaker 1: now you have a collaborator, whenever you start shooting it's
Speaker 1: a collaboration. Is it all get worked out really, really easily.
Speaker 1: Or do you find that collaborating with people is tough?
Speaker 1: I mean, with him, I'm lucky because he's an amazing addition.
Speaker 1: So but but if somebody looks well, but if no,
Speaker 1: he just has a great vision. So somebody has a
Speaker 1: great vision that goes beyond what your vision is, then
Speaker 1: it works well. If somebody's If you're fighting with somebody
Speaker 1: to try to like do something good, then it's a nightmare.
Speaker 1: But if you have somebody that's vision is let's do
Speaker 1: better than what you're doing or or let's do better
Speaker 1: than what you're doing, then it's exciting because I know
Speaker 1: that in films, you know director sometimes one is Glen Garry,
Speaker 1: Glen Ross. He was a good director. That's very very helpful. Man.
Speaker 1: It's also the guy that directed the Ricky Jay two
Speaker 1: assistants and speaking of him or or Copperfield, of any
Speaker 1: of the more well known people, uh do you get like,
Speaker 1: do you get an email of Vy now? And then
Speaker 1: the Copperfield says to you, I speak to both of them.
Speaker 1: Those want to be like I always wondering you just
Speaker 1: burnt to the ground like that you seem. And I
Speaker 1: hope you don't take this the wrong way because I
Speaker 1: don't know you that well. I mean, I know your
Speaker 1: person and I've seen you, and you seem like a
Speaker 1: very warm person. You seem to have a lot of
Speaker 1: love in your heart. You talk about your mom, you
Speaker 1: have a daughter, and of course in my mind, you're
Speaker 1: in that tank for seventeen minutes. You're doing one of
Speaker 1: these crazy things you're doing, and you know, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you've crossed the endurance line and you've blown
Speaker 1: a gasket and had a heart attack and a tank
Speaker 1: of water and you're dead. Jesus does death hang over you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think you know. It's not like
Speaker 1: I have a death wish, So I'm never trying to
Speaker 1: go to the point that's that I'm gonna die. I
Speaker 1: train really hard, and I study, and I work slowly,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of based on estimations and mathematics, and
Speaker 1: I've done it this much, so now I can do
Speaker 1: it this much. And I slowly push and push. So
Speaker 1: I try to assume that I'm doing it in a
Speaker 1: way that I'll be okay, um. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't. I won't cancel an idea because of the danger.
Speaker 1: So you ever been scared before? You're ever in the
Speaker 1: zone doing one of these things that saying wait a second,
Speaker 1: this is not going You're strapped into the rocket ship.
Speaker 1: And when the hallucinations start to come, like on the
Speaker 1: pillar it happened and uh in the block of ice,
Speaker 1: you go into another world. Things start to hear voices,
Speaker 1: you see people talking to that aren't there, and you
Speaker 1: start to really go into this sort of like a
Speaker 1: nightmare dream skate but while you're awake. So it's it's
Speaker 1: always been, that's always been something that but but at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's weird because it's kind of like
Speaker 1: amazing at the same time. So this thing you show
Speaker 1: me the pictures of the stage so that you were crafting,
Speaker 1: can you give us a sense of win? That might
Speaker 1: be ready but you might be doing that in the
Speaker 1: US win I'd say, you'll have it here in about
Speaker 1: a year. Yeah, and and and it will be everything
Speaker 1: that I've ever dreamed of, all put into one evening.
Speaker 1: You do it one evening. I wanted to not feel
Speaker 1: like a normal show. It's not going to be one
Speaker 1: even you know it'll it'll it'll come and go, but
Speaker 1: it will be. It will, it will move, and it
Speaker 1: will change because you can't risk your life like that
Speaker 1: every night. So it's it's gotta it's got, it's got
Speaker 1: to live a life of its own. Better you than me. Man.
Speaker 1: You're tough. I know, I see you, I see this,
Speaker 1: I go how do you do that? You're tough? Were
Speaker 1: there a sports in your life? You play football? Wrestling.
Speaker 1: I really like baseball, but I knew that there were
Speaker 1: so many people so much better than me, so I
Speaker 1: didn't spend all my time and focus on it. But
Speaker 1: I love sports and I love competitive. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I was competitive on everything, but I knew that there's
Speaker 1: guys that were so much better. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of like magic. Felt to me, like something that was
Speaker 1: my own. So I kind of went for that. Since, uh,
Speaker 1: since an early age, kept it to myself. You know
Speaker 1: what I think you are? I just figured it out.
Speaker 1: You know what I think you are because you're so tough.
Speaker 1: You're very sweet, you're filled with love, but you're really tough,
Speaker 1: you know, and you what you are I think you're projecting.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're a Jewish gangster. You went it up.
Speaker 1: It's a Jewish gangster in the end, a Jewish gangster
Speaker 1: who once grabbed a glass of wine from the President
Speaker 1: of Kazakhstan, drank it, then took a bite out of
Speaker 1: the glass, chewed it up, and swallowed. David Blaine has
Speaker 1: done this more than a few times on his Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: There's a recent photo labeled Dentist's Note. A hand scribbled
Speaker 1: piece of paper says no X rays where he needs
Speaker 1: crowns because he choose glass. Watch a video of David
Speaker 1: Blaine pushing an ice pick through his hand while I
Speaker 1: keep that hand steady that Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: This is at like Baldwin. You're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing four fo