David Copperfield uses magic to heal

David Copperfield is one of the world's most recognizable faces in the entertainment industry Forbes magazine describes him as the most commercially successful magician in history he began his professional career as an illusionist at 16 during the past 30 years he's earned 11 Guinness World Records a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a knighthood by the French government if that isn't enough he's also been named a living legend by the US Library of Congress known for his spectacular stage shows and television specials that combine illusions and storytelling Copperfield has sold more than 40 million tickets and grossed over four billion dollars not surprisingly that's more than any other solo entertainer in history for the past 30 years Copperfield has also devoted himself to the work of his foundation project magic so what is Project magic it's an innovative therapeutic technique here's how it works volunteer magicians trained therapists and patients in using magic tricks to improve physical dexterity functional skills and communication the American Occupational Therapy Association formally endorsed project magic as an alternative therapy back in 1982 the program is now being used by hospitals and rehab centers across the United States and in 30 countries around the world it has helped thousands of patients of all ages I recently sat down with David Copperfield at his home in Las Vegas where he reflected on his incredible career and the success of project magic David uh what I find fascinating about you is you're you're a little kid you start doing these tricks I still look at the head of clarification immediately by sixteen-year this child prodigy you're teaching at NYU when did David Copperfield realize he was going to be this David Copperfield was it was it along the way you know when you hit your 20s 30s what was it or back then did you say this is what I'm going to become I don't know you know I'm still just still one of those guys that still trying to get it right still trying to you know figure out what makes it good and I think that's probably my best secret is not really ever being totally satisfied or convinced not really looking we see all the stuff you see your name on the building and you see you know a lot of people happy at the same time that you know but still something inside of me wants to keep making it better it's funny I had a few minutes to kind of snoop around I noticed over here there's a book that says more than human and I almost feel like it should be your autobiography I'm not human actually I threw the batteries into that but I was talking to your assistant Stacy and I'm like I'm looking at all the things that you do and I mean this is just one facet of what you do I mean there's a wide range um and I'm like where does he find the time I mean that may be your best magic act you have a 27-hour day versus 24 the rest of it I wish I wish I'd be great you know I take little catnaps I don't have the best sleep schedule you know I get a nap but from 4:00 to 6:00 every day and then I get ready for my show so I know I have that time to kind of regenerate a bit I love I love the result of what I do the process isn't always fun but the result is good and that very is very motivating to watch an audience's reaction when something works it's torture what it doesn't work it's torture when you have an idea and it's different and new and you sit there and go like that and you know I reviews will be bad about one thing we'll get these reviews of online oh my god should I give up and you know my teammates are going to know here's some reviews of some things you love and they pick that apart - you're trying to innovate you're trying to be better you try to be different trying to go to the next level and that's going to remember that every single people person that you admire every single movie you'd learned tell you Mike went through those stages as long as they were there are pieces of work that weren't replications what was done before long as if you're trying to do something different or new that's always going to be a kind of a rough period in a 2013 interview with The Wall Street Journal you talked about Frank Sinatra and how he created this brand and and that that at some point in your career you decided I've got to have my brand what is the David Copperfield brand you know I never thought of it as a brand I never thought of it like you know Wrigley's gum or you know coca-cola or I never thought of it like that just recently it's been like okay we're going to call this Brandon or on mine for me it really grew from something that really has to have a heart there has to be kind of a soul to it if you try to just make the package a good package or things that have certain rules its soulless and I think it has to have a soul every single thing that I do that has worked and not everything has always worked what when it's worked its this has been a great amount of soul behind it which hadn't been done before magic I was always about the amazement and wonder it was never about the the thing that had a kind of a core value or a core message or feeling that I wanted to impart through that magic you're talking about soul it the thing that I find interesting is that's one word you use but another word that you've used a couple of times in this interview is child and you corrected me you said I'm still a kid how much how much of that childhood wonder has to come out in your show and is it just connecting with the kids or connecting with people like myself the kid inside all of us that they walk out with a big smile at the end of the evening I mean what is that childlike quality of magic really in a sense well I think magic in itself obviously is taken by the nature and turning it upside down you know it's it's it's taking mother nature and saying hey ignore the rules that life gives you you know the fact that you can't float and you can't disappear and you can't be sawed in half and things aren't supposed to appear and disappear that throw that out the window and you were going to disarm you and suspend and suspend your disbelief leave your doubts of the door and we're going to show you something fantastic that's obvious what that's what I'm going to do no matter what but then beyond that or within that there has to be something that really talks to the people that are watching it it'll be stories that they can relate to it can be something that would laugh at things that they can take home with them that they already have inside them you know they don't come in nobody wakes up in the morning and says I'm going to make a car up here today you know unless they want to buy a car nobody's on I think the statuary disappear today you know I mean nobody says that but they do talk about loss they talk about happiness they talk about certain dreams and needs so I tap in those things that people relate to and put everything that's on top of that your life is a banquet you're not just doing this I mean you're working on films you've got your Resort I mean the list goes on and on and on what gives you the greatest satisfaction or is it just having your hand on all these different things and doing all these different things I like people going I like people being disarmed by things be people being you're kind of like seeing that feeling of wonder I see it every night people say why can you do 15 shows a week for 11 weeks straight no days off how do you do it well it's only one way because I get something out of the audience I really get something back you know I get a feeling from them that's you know I share an experience that they're getting nowhere else and they give me that satisfaction back um my resort thing it's the same thing the resort is kind of bespoke experience where people choose like Fantasy Island they can choose to have be James Bond or they can choose to be pirate they can choose to be this and then or nothing they can just enjoy the place we've got very very rich experiences that take place there that make them really be immersed in another world you know my museum gives the same kind of feeling to to to people when they experience it so it's really taken to the audience on another place to another you know to a very special inspirational place that gives me a lot of satisfaction it allows me to do many different things I want to talk to you a little bit about project magic but before we go there you've had an opportunity to be cemented here in Las Vegas but of course you've toured all around the world and you and I had a chance to chat before we started rolling about your affection for China so talk to me about that experience and what was it like well how many hours do you got I just did I spent lots of time there I shot a special there where I walked through the Great Wall of China it was an amazing collaboration with the Americans and CCTV your company this is back then back in the day when all new equipment was was they had all the amazing equipment to collaborate and teaching each other how to use his equipment there it was at a time where every single place that you looked in China there was cranes building buildings and so forth I mean literally the year I went back after its buildings where that weren't there before it was an amazing amazing time and I have a great love for the Chinese people amazing kind of love affair we both have both both ways and I've toured there four or five times playing everywhere you know obviously Beijing and Shanghai Guangzhou every single city all around China doing my show with translations reading Chinese off the stage I have my Chinese words reading phonetically on the stage while you're looking down I'm reading the Chinese are in the stage and and of course I'm saying it badly because the pronunciation is very very specific but they were so like you know generous with their kind of understanding that I'm trying to trying to say the words correctly for them and they found it very funny when I messed up the language that little kids say but it's great you know it's magic his language there's no language barrier with magic let's talk about project magic because it's more than magic it's medicine and how did it come about it started when I was on tour and I got letters from a fan a magician and he wrote me letters I wrote her back and he never told me he was disabled and he sent me a picture of himself then he was in a wheelchair I said wow that's incredible and it was a picture and an advertisement of him as a magician and I never heard him back he said that he never told me you were you know disabled he I know and I said when you advertise yourself as a magician and people would show up roll up in wheelchair what was the reaction because there's no you know identification of him being disabled in the news iseman and he said that was their problem that he had his amazing self-image because he could do things that able-bodied people couldn't do he had a special skill he Celt really good about himself and it was largely because he was able to do magic and I thought wow that's interesting that's that's true of me you know I was not physically disabled or mentally disabled I don't think but socially disabled I think we're all so she'll be disabled we all want to have friends and we don't want to you know get the girl in high school we all want to talk to that person and magic was my kind of tool to to overcome that gave me a lot of strength and I thought well Kay gave me that strength socially it also kind of taught me certain things it taught me certain rules I learned about math because of mathematical tricks I I learned about sleight of hand the kind of movement by having to learn magic to get people to go wow I learned gross motor skills and fine motor skills even though I didn't have a disability it did teach me things so I took that concept and I brought to a hospital in California we collaborated with occupational therapists and physical therapists and the doctors and said hey is this idea would this work you know can you really learn and overcome or gain goals or you know reach certain goals if you learn these pieces of magic yes this can work so I got together a bunch of magicians and we came up with a bunch of ideas to bring to the medical professionals and find okay what can we do to teach this what could we do to teach this because in therapy they they have the rubber band and the block going the thing and you stacking of the cones to get your life experience back together we found magic - the same thing so not only was it a physical activity but it's something that they could show their family and their family could go you're amazing and they could see that reaction on their family's face that they've lost for a certain normally they get the reaction oh you okay but now they're wow you're great it's an enormous big gift to give something that's been through any kind of trauma so we put together a book it's a known a thousand hospitals in 30 countries around the world about 30 years ago it's 30 years old and it really does work and it's a transitional tool I'm not trying to make magicians out of patience we're trying to help them transition and learn to get dressed again by learning a baroque trekker you know show them that they can take that leap into into learning relearning those skills so there's always an idea and then there's the execution and then there's kind of like this vision well maybe this will end up in a hospital or two I mean you probably never thought it was going to go this far what are some of the things that you've seen I mean you must hear back from some of these patients saying hey thanks I'm able to do this and my family's wowed by and yeah I mean we've had you know people that you know come to me and they start giving me money for the charity not me money but the money for the charity and I said what happens well you know you got me my father back and I said no I didn't get I didn't get your father back no you did you have my father back you know my father was totally just you know not in good shape and he started learning project magic and then we had something to communicate about and we talked about night you know he starts telling me to start he begins to weep I start telling how it really happened it was a tool that really got them to communicate after many many years and and the father is now active and so far they was needed that one little thing too to kind of have a new outlook on life and it's amazing how a simple thing like magic can make that much of an impact I always kind of see the medical community who's kind of closed they're doctors they read these books and all of a sudden here's David Copperfield saying hey maybe this could really help did you get any resistance all that way a little bit you know of course but then you kind of show it and they go okay and now you know there's so much innovative medicine intimate in their techniques back in the 80s when this began it was a little bit less so so now you know now I think we run really a kind of a train to have all kinds of great ideas as therapy miu dance therapy and music therapy and drama therapy and that stuff and all those things really work in their own way you know the fact laughter therapy it's amazing how smiles can really lift you up you know I once had a singing teacher I can't sing but I had a singing teacher and his technique hee-hoo he laughs out of bed even though he wasn't happy getting out of bed he would haha laughs out about and change his day and I tried it a few things I haven't done in my whole life but it does work you know as little things like that do work in their own way you know you're programmed to our chemicals work when we smile a little bit and it's amazing little things that make a difference all right I promise I won't steal this but will you teach me a magic trick I can do something like a project magic piece this is the thing where you take a rope and I take a rib okay so follow along here and we'll hold up like this okay very nicely that okay not know what you can do is you're going to go around the arm exactly around the arm like this and I'm sorry this this this up this right hand you're doing good so far I'm like gonna turn like this okay okay all right so like okay something like this go around the arm okay like take this a this on yes it okay and then down like this okay doing really good so far not really hands gonna come like this okay he's a broadcaster okay yeah all right good good so I'm gonna start you see you're good you know you're here right looks like you've you made two losers okay i have i yes you okay there all right okay you know in this one okay like the hell doesn't it Oh get out this one and out like at the slip here okay okay okay this works better in hospital just so you know and then watch me I'll go first okay uh and you have a knot like that don't let go to the ends just throw it off your wrist Wow let's go start again let's start again try to shake it here yeah you gonna get better this time here haha I don't feel like it this is you take this hand day yeah come towards yourself okay like this I don't go around the oil right and then whatever you like yeah I'm better now you got a much smoother okay yeah these two loops do you see it to you just like this yes you know this look and that's in this loo in like that and it likes one through this one yep okay and out the other one okay we should do a good job okay exactly all right so as you're gonna do that and I will have a not beautiful not there go ahead concert just go like this and we need some more practice I think how about we do this yes how about you and I stay right here and you just do an abracadabra you make us disappear okay abracadabra bad camera tricks go

Channel: CGTN America

Views: 66,262

Rating: 4.7919073 out of 5

Keywords: david copperfield, mike walter, magic, full frame, heal, sleight, project magic

Id: MZINpZvZQW4

Length: 17min 24sec (1044 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 11 2014