Hailed by audiences and critics as the greatest illusionist of our time, David Copperfield has elevated the ancient art of magic to new heights and redefined it along the way. He has vanished the Statue of Liberty, walked through the Great Wall of China, flown through the air. Copperfield’s approach to his venerable art has transformed the way the world looks at magic.
Journalist: Is there anyone in this world who knows all the secrets of your magic?
Copperfield: No.
Journalist: No? Not even a single person?
Copperfield: No.
Journalist: But you yourself know everything, right?
Copperfield: Right, that’s correct.
Journalist: How can you make sure other people don’t know -- you have to work with other people, right?
Copperfield: Yeah, but they, some, for some pieces... people have to know 1)portions, but no one person knows everything. Even when we construct the stage, it’s constructed with many different people who build individual things. No one person does the entire thing, so it’s good.
Journalist: Do you have any plans, like you will tell everything to your kids in the future?
Copperfield: I don’t think so. I think it would be better for magic to not tell and have people be 2)motivated to come up with their own way of doing things, invent something new not take the easy way out. And I think that’s what I’m going to do, probably.
Journalist: What kind of world are you living in? Do you think you’re living in a sort of 3)isolated world in some way?
Copperfield: No, because I’m sharing it. I’m not isolating it. I’m sharing the stories, I’m sharing the wonder with people. So, it’s not isolated at all, you know it’s just what’s behind it. It’s like a singer sharing their music, a sort of sharing the music. They don’t have to know the process to create it. They don’t have to see how the 4)vocal cords are 5)vibrating, or know exactly how difficult it is to play the instrument. All that matters is that you’re sharing the result, the beauty of the result, and that’s what we do.
Journalist: But I heard when you saw 6)Claudia, you even had to sign a contract with her, so that she wouldn’t tell any other people about what you’re doing every day, how you do your magics. Look, you even can’t share everything with the most 7)intimate person.
Copperfield: No, but that really wasn’t about the secrets of the magic, per se, that was really, you know, a more, a publicity thing saying that secrets are important. She really didn’t know what was behind the scenes, per se, she didn’t want to know. It’s so funny that the smartest people really don’t want to know.
Journalist: Why is that?
Copperfield: I did a Broadway show and Francis Ford Coppola was my 8)collaborator. He is the guy that directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, a great film director. And he came to many, many 9)rehearsals of the show, and he didn’t want to know how anything worked. Even his associates that were working with him would try to take him behind the scenes to see it and he wouldn’t want to see. And I thought that was great, because he wanted to feel the amazement and feel the wonder and not spoil it for him. I think that says a lot.
