WEBVTT - Alec Baldwin and David Blaine Do Magic 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:09.959 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:15.440 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.760 hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:27.040 their careers, what relationships influenced their work? Did you examine 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.240 it somewhere? I've examined it. I checked out. My guest 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.839 today is magician David Blaine. He arrived at our studio 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:41.479 ready to astonish. Even before we began our interview, he 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.200 pulled out an ice pick and began poking it through 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:52.760 his hands. Actually for ship. The pick is four inches 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.200 long and David Blaine is pushing it through the backside 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:04.800 of his hand through Yeah. Years ago, Blaine got an 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.520 m r I to locate the spot in his hand 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.920 where a puncture would do the least damage, but there's 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.600 no glove. David Blaine's stunts pushed the limits of the 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.600 human body. He held his breath for over seventeen minutes. 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.840 He spent thirty five hours on a hundred foot high 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.559 pillar with no harness. He encased himself in a six 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.120 ton block of ice for sixty three hours. He was 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.480 buried alive for a week, and he went without food, 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.640 hanging in a plexiglass box near Tower Bridge in London 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.680 for forty four days. At the heart of these stunts 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:46.480 is an obsession with magic that began innocently as early 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.400 as the age of four. I remember holding a deck 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.960 of cards, carrying it, treating it like it was an 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.720 amazing object, carrying it everywhere that I went. And I 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.520 didn't really know what magic was at that point, but 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.560 having the cards was the beginning of me entering that 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.040 world basically, And how does the four year old child 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.160 enter that world with, like with their games you bought? 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.200 Were there things? Now, I'll explain it. We grew up 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.280 really poor, so my mother and bok, yeah, my mother 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.680 raised me as a single mother, working multiple jobs. She 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.360 actually grew up with a really wealthy family. And when 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.440 she was eighteen, she was living at the Sharon Nedland 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.880 with her family that was the head of the Jewish mafia, 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.400 one of the top families that was on like the 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.520 cover of Time Life magazine, all these crazy things, and 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:35.960 she felt that that that the whole family and all 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.720 the corruption was really bad. And eventually, at age eighteen, 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.800 she tried to kill herself. So she went to rehab 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.960 and she had kind of a coming of age, and 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.079 she moved to Brooklyn, never to really speak to her 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.280 family for the most part again. And then she met 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:57.440 my biological father. She met him in a nondenominational church 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:02.320 and when they fell him love, he immediately got shipped 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.600 to Vietnam. So she waited for him. Where was he from? 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.120 He was Puerto Rican in a mixture of other things, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.640 and didn't know him too. I only met him a 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:16.079 couple of times. So they fell in love. He got 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.880 sent off to Vietnam, and when he came back, as 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.960 many of the soldiers, he had witnessed things there that 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.200 completely destroyed it, like he saw his close friend get 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.120 hung up on a tree alive and gutted, and all 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.080 these terrible things. When he came back, my mother had 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.800 waited him for him, and he was having nightmares and 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:43.280 waking up with violent you know, screaming, yelling, breaking. So 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:46.920 she got pregnant. When she told him a few months 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.000 later that she was pregnant, at that point, he looked 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.800 at her and said, I don't want to see you anymore, 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.960 and he left. So that was it, and my mother 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.680 put everything everything that she had into me. We lived 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.640 in a sixth story walk up. We started in Flatbush 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.600 and we went to Park Slope and it wasn't what 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:13.720 it is today, you know. It Aged three, my biological 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.440 father showed up. I was ringing the doorbell because I 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.000 guess he wanted to see me and maybe her, And 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.640 when she came downstairs, he punched her in the nose, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.160 broke her nose and everything like that. So it's kind 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.119 of like my first jarring and you know, terrible memory 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.520 of things. But anyway, at around the age of four, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.880 her mother had given her a Tarot deck of playing cards. 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.039 It was a regular deck of cards with Tarot images 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.000 on it, and she gave it to me and I 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.200 cherished this deck of cards and carried it everywhere. Now, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.560 one thing that my mother did is when she had time, 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.640 she would always take me to museums, libraries, bookstore, everything 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.840 that she could, just to educate me and show me 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.599 other things, which was way more valuable than any of 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.680 the toys that i've you know, you could ever give 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.080 or get. And so I would wa for her at 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.599 the library and a librarian that was working there showed 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.400 me the simple self working mathematical book of Magic Tricks. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.599 Using that deck of cards, I always said, So I 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.960 learned something very simple, and when my mother showed up, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.039 I did this to her and she went crazy like 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.200 she had witnessed real magic. And that was the beginning 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:26.000 of the love for performing and learning more. And continually thought, 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.680 if I could just get a Vegas lounge filled with 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.840 people like my mother, then I'd be said. But the 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.320 other thing that happened was I was also born with 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.920 my feet turned in, so yeah, but really bad. So 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.920 I had leg braces and it's like Forrest Gump and 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.320 I had leg braces and things like that. So when 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.599 you're in Brooklyn without a dad and you're alone a lot, 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.320 and you can't run and you can't be athletic, you escape. No, 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.799 that's part of it, but you're also picked on because 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:57.919 when I wasn't at the library waiting for her to 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.560 finish on days that she was working later, I would 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:02.080 go to the y m c A. And I was 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.800 on the swim team. So I couldn't beat the kids 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.520 swimming because my legs didn't and they still don't actually, 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.000 but they didn't work perfectly. So in order to beat everybody, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.239 I just wouldn't breathe. So at the age of five, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.080 I learned that, you know, they have to turn their 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.760 head like this to breathe. There I would just swim 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.120 and I wouldn't breathe. So I started to at a 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:26.039 very young age build up this inforance yeah, or this 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:30.280 ability to just use your brain to override the pain basically, 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.679 and I would win. And then if it was two laps, 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:34.360 I would hold for two laps. So at the age 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.800 of five, I started to get really good at these 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.200 types of things. Now I started to play games with 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.479 the kids, so I would challenge them. I would say, okay, 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.039 I'll stand the water and you can stand the water, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:46.520 and then when you go up, you can come down, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.120 go up, come down, go up five times. So eventually 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:50.920 I was like that kid that could hold my breath 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.320 under water while they would hold their breath, go up 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:54.960 for a breath, come back down, go up. Come But 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.640 but but I didn't even understand that the science of 0:06:57.680 --> 0:06:59.479 it was that makes it very difficult when you go 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.640 up and go down, go up there, it wastes a 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.960 lot of O two. So that was kind of at 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.120 the beginning. And do you hold the record? Now? I 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.159 had it, but it was taken away. Um, it was 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.600 taken away by a friend of mine, Tom Z this year. Yeah, 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.520 but I became friends with him through through the breath 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.760 hold when I did it on Oh Well, that's where 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.320 I did it for the world record, But the first 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.640 time I did it was at Lincoln Center and I 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.200 did it live on my ABC television show. So I 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:26.800 held my breath and I was just going for the 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.840 straight non PuO two breath hold record, which means you 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.280 don't breathe puero two first, you just purge really hard 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.920 and then take a deep breath and hold. And the 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.800 record at that time was nine oh eight, and I thought, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.200 for some reason I would build up a tolerance and 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.080 and some help pull it off. But I cracked at 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.440 seven and thirty. So then I went back and I 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.920 did the on Oprah. I did too, yeah, and that's 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.960 a different world record, but that one I knew I 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.000 could get. And the perro too, makes a big difference, Officer, absolutely. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.480 And when you do when you hold your breath for 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.920 seventeen minutes and four seconds, like towards the end, are 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.320 you blacking out? Are you punching a table to try 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.440 to keep yourself going? It depends, And I mean sometimes 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.000 it's really peaceful and amazing. When everything is just right, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.280 you kind of go somewhere else. But when things are 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.200 falling apart, it becomes layer after layer, and it gets 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.480 worse and worse, and you're trying not to black out, 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.240 and the pain is building up, and you think you're 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.600 going into cardiac arrest and you're fighting. So when it's 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.000 not perfect, it becomes really bad. But when it's perfect, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.959 it's it's one of those amazing meditatives' assuming it was 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.480 perfect done open because you did seventeen minutes. Yeah, it 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.400 was pretty good, but it started really bad. It was 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.560 better at the end when I actually realized that I 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.679 made it and I wasn't, you know, going into cardiac arrest. 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.319 But the whole experience of it was was pretty brutal. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.920 So the Deck of Cards four years old, your mother 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.880 is the beginning, if you will, of a sense of 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.440 the power of magic. Yeah, her reactions and and holding 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.439 your breath and pool was when you first pigan to 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.600 embrace endurance capabilities and the advantages that could give you. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:07.360 But at the same time, I was also in the 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.240 library and I would be looking at other books on magic. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.400 So you see images of guys like Houdini or specifically 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.480 Houdini dangling from the side of a building and you 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.240 look at this man chained up to the side of 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.120 a building. You don't have a father figure, like, WHOA, 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.199 this is really crazy. So I would go to sleep 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.800 at that young age and I'd have dreams of these 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.600 things that I'd seen on these books. And what Houdini 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.760 was doing was kind of similar because he was doing 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.040 things that you knew were real. Even at that young age, 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.240 you could see it and you know it's not an illusion. 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.520 When you're four years old and you have the magic 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.960 book and you're doing the tricks to to go to 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.560 the level you're at, it's instruction involved. How do you 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:50.240 go to the next level after being the four year 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:51.679 old boy with the deck of cards in a book. 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.520 In the beginning, it's only books. It was a different 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.200 day and age. That's how you learned. You learned from reading. 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.040 That went on for how long, um, until the age 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.280 of eleven? Did you have a mentor? No? My mother 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:12.760 called my great aunt who sent a check to her 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:14.560 for a couple hundred bucks so I could go to 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.320 some magic camp for a week, Tannin's Magic Camp. I 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:22.439 went there and in Long Island, where your friend, and 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.839 I entered the competition and I won. So I had 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.040 all this confidence as a kid, and I started doing 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.200 little parties and shows, but I never performed really for 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.160 my peers, and not other than my best friends. Nobody 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.520 knew I did magic, and it wasn't you could have 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:42.880 been I mean, these are all trips. You could have 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.040 been the life of the party. Yeah, but back then 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.280 and the kids are like, oh, you're some weird though, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.000 so it's not. It's the opposite. It's like, get the hell, Yeah, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.600 it's something weird, you know, you're a nerdy or so. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.600 So I kind of kept it to myself pretty much. 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.080 And uh, at around the age of eighteen, I started 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:04.680 performing with it where um all over New York. Really. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.000 I would just I'd be walking off the deck of cards, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.520 shuffling cards in my hand, and like the guys you 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.839 know that they were the parking garage would see me 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.880 and they'd react to just a simple shuffle I was practicing. 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:18.920 So I'd go and do magic and I would get 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.360 all these amazing reactions from people, and it was addicting. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:23.760 Who was at the top of the heap when you 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.080 were a kid, when you first became aware they're they're 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.880 just amazing magicians. But they're not doing talk. They're not known, 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.240 but they're incredible, so they would just do these in 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.800 their private world. Now, yeah, well they'd all meet at 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.880 this little deli in New York and like the Earl 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.840 in ninety it was called Rubens. It was on Madison 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.200 even thirty eight, and it was you know, it was 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.480 it was not the deli that they would let us meet. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.880 It was the back room of a deli and all 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:52.240 these yeah, none of the seriously, none of them. But 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.600 the people in the deli were happy because they like magic. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.079 So the magicians do stuff, and the and the magicians 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:05.520 were you know more. Green Grass of course went to 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:11.040 school with Bney, but do you ever hang out with him? Yeah? 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.800 He knew all my relatives, so eventually, yeah, it was 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.280 funny though, those are the thing. And then my great 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.679 aunt when, uh, when the one that put me to 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:24.080 magic camp, that paid give that gave my mother that 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.840 or when so when when I started to make you 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:31.800 know a little money, because I was on TV here 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.000 and there, which my great aunt at a hundred years 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.320 old living in San Antonio, Texas thought was, I was, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.080 you know, this incredibly rich guy would order from body 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.720 from Barney green Grass from the sun Gary every other week. 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.960 And she's alone in San Antonio and this little oh 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.280 and and everything you can take up a stray and 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.000 locks and this and that filth everybody they ship it 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.640 down there. Once. I showed up when she died. When 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.320 she died, I came there the next day to handle everything. 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.640 And I get there and again she lives alone at 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.800 A hundred and three. When she died, lives alone. I 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:17.359 get there and the next day a huge FedEx arise 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.120 from party gree Grass and it's, you know, loaded with 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.480 this insane amount of food that nobody could eat them. 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.600 When you do a show in the world of magic 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.160 or illusion or whatever you want to call it, and 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.080 I'm gonna ask you, what do you call it magic? 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.600 I mean, I just like the word magic because it's 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.040 a general term and it's easy. Yeah, people get it. 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.760 So when you when you when you think of Houdini escaping, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.640 because a lot of his was escape, ustry is that 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.520 dute is very very simple and easy. Now have things advanced, 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.400 and now because that guy put so much in so 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.000 what he was doing it was about like just being tough, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:57.839 you know what I mean, I think he was very 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.280 tough and willing to go through whatever the hell it took. 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.000 So it's like very few people have that kind of 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.199 tolerance to this day. I mean even if your physical pain. Yeah, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:09.720 he was just tough. I'm assuming he would be because 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.280 you're a very physically powerfully built person. Not right now, Well, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.080 is there an exercise regiment throughout your career you've had 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:17.679 to do in order to have the strength, because a 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.400 lot of these things require tremendous strength. Big time, you're 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.760 standing on a beam, for you were up there thirty 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.320 six hours hours? How is that on your body? Well, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.440 that you don't. When I was a little kid in 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.320 school and I get in trouble and the teacher would say, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.240 go stand in the corner, It's like, come on, this 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.120 is easy. Like you stand for forty five minutes. It's 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.640 supposed to be hard. So yeah, and then you can 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:42.680 apply that. So it's like how long can you stand 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:44.800 in one place? So that's really what it's about. So 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.200 I would practice to standing in one place, and you know, 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.240 I'd put a chair somewhere and to stand on and 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.720 see how long I could do things like that. But 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.240 in order to prepare for an event. No, well, I 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.760 mean there's a training involved. Yeah. No, When it comes 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.160 to something like that, I would I build really heavy 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.440 weight vests or chain mail things like that, and I 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:10.200 would just climb stairs, so I'd add sixty pounds, run upstairs, 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.360 go jogging around the park, do all these things, and 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.360 I would hide it to no one city. But you 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.240 build up a real a real tolerance and a real 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.480 strength and an ability to endure anything. And with a 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:22.880 body that you put through those things, especially the breath 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.600 holding thing, I'm going to assume it. You don't have 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.080 to answer this question that there's a whole menu of 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.360 things you just don't do. You know, smoke, you don't 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.320 take drugs, you don't take alcohol? Or are you a 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.720 little more liberal? I go through extremes, so when I'm 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.520 in training, I guess. So when I'm training, I'm like extremely, 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.360 I eat by the buy a clock and buy a scale. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.200 But when I'm on the other extreme, I'll have like 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.560 you know the opening of the movie, I have another 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:54.680 ship that one. But there's a supreme discipline and then 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.840 you let it drop. Right, It's an extreme on both ends. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.120 As you're getting older, is it tougher to do not 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.920 old but no, no, but I you know, you feel 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:07.520 the difference, and it's it's it's definitely noticeable. It's it's 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.760 it's more work put in, but it doesn't feel more difficult. 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.600 One of the things I read is your desire to 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.440 do some sleep deprivation endurance record. Correct. I've been obsessed 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.200 with that one. Why just because it's so difficult. It's 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.280 a thing during every endurance thing that I've done, it's 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:28.040 always a sleep deprivation. That's ultimately the most difficult part. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.520 I mean, sleep deprivation for me has really had a 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.440 tremendous impact on my body. For me, at least, I struggle. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.240 I have a terrible problem sleeping. Although they say, like 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.720 Edison and Lincoln, a couple of guys used to take 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.800 naps um throughout the day, so they would only sleep 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:46.680 a couple of hours a night, but they would take 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.200 fifteen minute naps and Edison would hold like a set 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.080 of keys in his hand, so if he nodded off, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.000 he dropped the keys and would wake him up, and 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.200 that proved to be very effective. So I think there's 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.200 there's different ways to well. I'm in a different business 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.600 to Edison and Lincoln. Warren and those guys, actually they 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.600 looked like ship. They really looked terrible. They look wasted, tired, haggard. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.040 But I think it's not especially he looked like But 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.160 I think there is a way to build a good sleeper. Um, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.880 what's your normal constitution? Like borderline narcalyptic? You are, Yeah, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.639 But I wake up every morning at like five am. 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:21.760 And even if I'm up like yeah, I just wake 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.639 up one one at the crack of dumb. But um, 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.680 I nod off very easily, like I could easily just 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.360 lights out and that's it. And I mean made conversation 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.439 with all of my friends or at meetings, I'll just 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.320 not off right. And so my friends said to me 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.920 that he was a makeup artist and a hairdresser in 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.720 the movie business, and he said he worked with Elizabeth 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.240 Taylor and she would go to this place at the 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.440 Clinic of Jovenetta in the Italian Alps, and they would 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:52.760 go there and eliminate tobacco, alcohol, salt, sugar, caffeine. They 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.119 ate this very restricted diet. And these people would go 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.240 there and you would just pass out numb from exhaustion, 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.480 like every afterno like two o'clock and sleep to five 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.480 wake up, have dinner, go back past out at nine thirty, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.280 sleep ten hours. You just slept for a month. And 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.520 when the month was over she lost thirty pounds. It 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.040 was a weight loss probably feel amazing. It was a 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.000 weight loss clinic and there and the key to their 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:20.520 weight lost thing was to induced just this ridiculous amount. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.679 But yeah, the diet part is amazing too though, Like 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.040 we're taking away salt, sugar and all that stuff that. Yeah, 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.480 and it makes your body function that much better. What's 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:34.760 your weakness? Food? Was David Blaine the farest pizza. Luckily 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:41.639 it's in Brooklyn, sitting. Now, where's your mom? She passed 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.240 away the best win. She got sick when a sixteen, 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.320 and she fought for a couple of years. What was 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.200 that like for you? I mean, obviously terrible, but yeah, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.639 I mean it was the most difficult thing I for 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.960 when you were sixteen. I mean, she hadn't made The 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.520 day she told me, no, no, no, The day she 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.320 told me she had cancer, you know, I was magic 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.560 was my dream. And I remember I started crying and 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.399 I said, like, if I could just I'll cut my 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.479 arms off right now to get rid of your cancer. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.600 The one thing she was concerned with and she said this, 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.520 uh to one of the hospice nurses before she that, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.760 she said, my my, my, my only worry is that 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.639 my son is always going to be alone. So that 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.400 was kind of like that if I could have proven right, well, 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.600 I have a daughter now, so so that is it 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.480 hard for you to have with with the work. You 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:31.000 do have half brother, but work, you know, he's he's 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.840 he's around, he's around, and he's amazing and he's great. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.760 But you find it's difficult with what you do. Describe 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.000 your life. Are you on a plane constantly and yeah, 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.480 I'm always trying to David Blaine is going from like 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.120 always traveling, oh non style. How has that affected your life? Um, 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.760 it's very difficult. You get used to it, but it's yeah, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.480 it's tricky because you never have like a base anywhere. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.840 David Blaine says magicians are lonely. No one wants to 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.000 it up with me, he claims, maybe not quite, no one. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.560 We're doing our time together. Blaine is the first to 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.800 pull out his phone to share kid videos. I never 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:21.480 taught her, Alex. She just started doing it. So okay, okay, 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:29.439 don't call anybody. Okay, everybody can see your assistant. No, no no, 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:36.800 she's forget assistem. I'll probably work for her. Crazy. For 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.560 more conversation about children with people like Chris Kardashian, check 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.320 out our archives. I feel like the luckiest woman in 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.560 the world because I get to get up every single 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.320 day and I work with my kids and my family, 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.639 and I mean get more controlling than that. Take a 0:20:52.680 --> 0:21:15.679 listen that Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.560 Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. David Blaine 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:24.160 is known for his TV specials and endurance stunts. Until recently, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.320 he stayed away from the kind of show you might 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.080 see in Vegas. I do shows, but they're I doom 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:32.919 on occasion. When did you first play a big venue? 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.240 When did you first play a venue that you told 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.960 yourself this is things have changed? Um, well, I've I've 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:41.960 been doing a lot of little things, but recently I 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.320 just started building a tour. So I started playing like 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.679 eight and ten thousand seaters and things like that, um 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.640 around the world, not in America, and I've just been 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.520 testing out how to make things work. But it's been 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.399 really delicate for me because it's I've always had a 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:58.600 big vision as far as doing one of those shows. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.119 So I never wanted to build an illusion show. I 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.520 kind of wanted to do things where an illusion show 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.800