- My guest tonight is a death-defying magician
who will be kicking off a North American tour on May 6th.
Please welcome David Blaine.
(audience cheering and applauding)
(upbeat music)
It must be weird being a world-renowned magician,
because I know I do it, and I feel like everyone does it
around you, there's, I don't like trust you.
Like, even when I greeted you now, I was like,
"Did he steal my watch, is my tie changing color?"
Is that like a thing that you've just gotten used to,
is people are ready for a trick all the time.
- Well, let me start with this show, on its own,
is the start of my career.
It was Jon Stewart that gave me my first break when I was
18 or 19 years old, and put me on television, so...
- Wow.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- This is the start.
And the first time I did magic to Jon,
he went running out of his office,
and climbed up a wall.
It was at the MTV building, and it was, yeah.
- Yeah, that's the black side of him.
(audience laughing)
That's something I wondered.
Like, have you noticed how, when you do magic,
'cause I've watched all of your specials,
I watch your clips on YouTube, everywhere,
but like, when you perform magic for black people,
I don't know if you've noticed this,
but they run very far.
I've seen...
- See, I was, I grew up with an opposite,
because you know, my godfather, you know,
he's African American, the whole thing.
- The whole thing, I'm with you, yeah.
- And I would do magic to him when I was little,
and he didn't respond at all.
And my mother, Russian Jew, was the polar opposite.
I would do tricks to her that were like simple card tricks,
and she would go running away screaming,
so it was like, you know, I was raised by a single mother,
and anything I did to her was like the ultimate reaction,
so when I started doing magic,
I started just looking for reactions, so...
- Right, right, right.
- Now, one time, the early idea for the TV show,
which is called Street Magic, I was walking
through the, and I was doing a one-handed shuffle,
I was in like, in Times Square,
but when it was like a dangerous area...
- Right, it still is, 'cause of Elmo, but yeah, carry on.
(audience laughing)
- Yeah, yeah, and these four guys saw me
doing a one-handed shuffle and just started like screaming
over a one-handed shuffle, and came over,
and I started doing magic to them,
and the reactions were incredible,
so that was like what drove me,
but I started to realize that in order to get
really good reactions, you have to do things
that provoke people, because like right now,
if I did something to you, your reaction
in this environment would be very muted.
- Right.
Because I'm trying to hide that you freak me out.
(audience laughing)
- No, it would be muted unless
I did something that was crazy.
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering and applauding)
And on that note...
(audience cheering)
Do you wanna see the, think of a four-digit number
that's important to you, or do you wanna see the ice pick?
- Four-digit number, right?
(audience laughing)
- Well, that's really good, because I actually
brought an ice pick with me, see?
See, and this one would probably be hard to not react
too much to, but will you just check it,
and make sure it's actually real?
- Yeah, that's real.
- Yeah?
Another, then I also...
- I've tested ice picks my whole life, that's real.
- I also brought with me some alcohol,
and this is to make sure that my hand
doesn't just explode or blow up or anything weird.
- Oh man.
- Um, see, this is what I do with this.
By the way, I started reading your book, it's amazing.
(audience laughing)
So now, often, people say that when I do this
there's like some sort of tunnel or something like that,
so I'll let you kind of pick the spot.
(audience screaming)
Yeah, say, just..
- Like, in, in...
- Sure, yeah, whatever you want, yeah.
- Yeah, I would...
- Maybe don't poke it through a vein,
because then blood will shoot out everywhere.
- I think there, that looks like the safest place, like
right over, right over there, that's like the safest place.
- Right in there? Really?
Wow, I don't know, I have no clue what's gonna happen.
- You, yeah.
- Well, I've never done this where I just
let somebody choose where they're gonna shove this thing.
- Well, I'm not choosing, I'm suggesting.
(audience laughing)
- Let's, here, I'll get it started,
let's just see, here, maybe in, here, you know what?
If you feel around, maybe...
- Yeah, that's nice, that's safe.
- Yeah? Yeah, see.
You can see how it looks, yeah.
See that?
See how it looks like it's really starting to go in there?
See that?
See that, Trevor?
- Oh, oh.
Oh.
- But, like there.
- Oh, oh.
(audience screaming)
- Trevor, there's no way to know if it's actual
until you see the other side, Trevor.
See, it would be this side.
See, like, when you do like that?
See? Here.
(audience screaming)
- [Trevor] Oh.
- Here, you know, will you grab it
from the bottom, Trevor?
Yeah, grab it from the bottom, and just push.
Like that, just push.
Yeah, see how, yeah, push.
- Oh.
(audience screaming)
- See? See that?
See, that would be hard not to react to.
Trevor, this is for you to keep,
so can you just pull that out?
Slowly, yeah, pull.
Pull, pull, pull.
(audience screaming)
Pull, yeah.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- For tickets, for tickets to see David Blaine live,
go to LiveNation.com.
David Blaine, everybody.
(upbeat music)