On my radio show this weekend, I’ll be hearing from the stars of “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” a magic-themed comedy about competing magicians on the Vegas strip starring Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and Steve Buscemi. The film opens in theaters on March 15.
The all-time king of Vegas magic is certainly master illusionist David Copperfield, who’s currently set up shop at the MGM Grand. He even makes a cameo in the film.
So in honor of Copperfield and the movie, here’s an interview I had with him a few years back.
Q.: Your performance and tour schedule seem unrelenting.
A.: Barbara Walters once told me that an expert told her that a really deep sleep of 20 minutes is like four or five hours; something like that. ...So maybe psychosomatically I just probably believed her and it started to work.
Q.: The Fox Theatre in Atlanta is one of your favorite stops, and itseems to lend itself to your genre of performing.
A.: You’re really enveloped in a magical environment, the stars and the mood of the whole place. And the audience is entering through a whole palace so they know they’re going to be in a very special place seeing something very special. It’s just a great place to do what I do.
Q.: You typically leave jaws scraping the floor. To pull that off every night has to be a challenge.
A.: Especially today. We have “Avatar,” and we have such innovating stuff that audiences have come to regard as the normal thing. I really have to look at my work and make sure it captivates people’s imagination the same way that the cinema or Broadway does. So I have to stay on my toes.
Q.: How do you stay giddy about magic after all these years?
A.: I just really love watching the audience and seeing how they’re responding to stuff. Sometimes if I’m ever getting complacent, I just focus on the audience and go, “Oh, that’s right. I’m doing this for that reason.” Hopefully they’re amazed and moved. Sometimes you glaze over doing 500 shows a year. The wake up call is looking at the audience. You feel kind of needed. The audience makes you feel like you’re there for a purposeful job.
Q.: You own a private resort in the Bahamas (Musha Cay and the Islands of Copperfield Bay) that combines luxury, natural beauty and magic. Does theming your resort recharge you?
A.: Exactly. We’re building an [element] where statues will rise out of the ground and reveal a staircase that leads to a secret tunnel, and you come up into a whole other world. It’s all magic based, but it’s experience based. Magic happens all around you. There’s a treasure hunt and the treasure isn’t discovered, it magically appears. And people float on the beach in full sunlight. We have a drive-in movie theater, and we’re doing a whole James Bond kind of experience there. We have a Houdini room on the island with Houdini’s pool table and all of his memorabilia on the wall and all around you. It’s so much fun. And there’s a whole set of our clientele that just wants to do nothing. And that’s cool, too. It’s a beautiful place and it speaks for itself. And you nailed it. It really recharges me and keeps me doing what I normally do in a new environment with a new palette.
The Pop Culture King Show featuring interviews with the stars of "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" airs 8 p.m. March 8 and 10 a.m. March 9 on AM 1690 in Atlanta. Stream live at: www.1690wmlb.com.
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