The Soul of an Idea with David Copperfield

0:05David Copperfield has done some remarkable things. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear. He made an entire jet disappear. He walked through the Great Wall of China. In fact, he is the most commercially successful magician in history. So how is it that someone can stay passionate for so long? And how do they keep coming up with ideas that keep them and their audiences interested? It turns out it's about finding the soul of an idea. And this is what David has been doing for so long and the rest of us can really learn from. This is a bit of optimism.

0:53David, thanks for joining me. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you on the podcast is you are one of the very few people in show business who've had a career that has lasted as long as yours has. I mean, you've been famous since, what, your early 20s? 18. This year is the 40th anniversary of when you made the Statue of Liberty disappear. And you were already a thing when you made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I mean, to have a career this long is rare in Hollywood. As you know, people come and go in the entertainment business. One of the things I'm so curious about is - It's all based on fear.

1:27It's all based on fear. What do you mean? We can get into it. I'll lie down. You can - So tell me about your childhood. What do you mean it's based on fear? You know, my mother, you know, didn't want me to do this, right? And they convinced me I'd never have any success in this magic stuff. You know, when I was taking dancing classes, she was afraid I'd be a dancer. I was taking dancing classes to inform my magic, you know, kind of to make it visually pleasing. I was taking acting lessons because I wanted my magic to be better. How old are you at this time? 16, 15. And I would go to New York every day from New Jersey.

2:04and it was fantastic. I didn't know what was the future held for me, but I knew that if I had background in many different areas, it would be very helpful. My mother was going, I don't think it's such a good idea. It was really pretty heated. My father gave up his dream of being an actor and he gave it up so we could eat. So it was a big fear that I would not have a job, be able to eat. So I had to prove to myself that maybe it's possible. I went to Fordham for three weeks and then I got a job in Chicago being a star of a show. I was at 18. Wow. I was very lucky. And there's been lots of lows too, right?

2:42Without everybody, right? But it was an interesting journey. But fear of looking not good is definitely there. Isn't it for you? Don't you have fear? I heard Lionel Richie talk about this. The fear he had of going out on stage and the fear he had of admitting he couldn't do something, like he couldn't read music, for example. and he said the difference between the coward and the hero is that both are scared completely consumed by fear but the coward takes one step back and the hero takes one step forward i've been both i'm i'm a mix of the coward and the hero i do take steps back momentarily they don't last that long but i do take the hit i do i get slapped and like oh and then i kind of i come out of it and try to work harder i am interested in fear and i want to go deeper into that and i'm interested in how one has a career that has lasted this long, and you're the most commercially successful magician in history, is your joy.

3:37Because I meet a lot of people who've had careers doing something, and they reach a point in their career where they are so good at it, they know how to do it, and they keep doing it, but they don't derive the same excitement or joy as they did in the early days. You're still coming up with new illusions. And I'm so curious where the joy from the developing of the illusions or the performing comes from? Is it still as joyful today as it was 20 years ago, 30 years, 40 years ago? It's the same, but it's the same process every time. It's joy to walk on stage and do a show for people that seem to need to be there.

4:14They seem to need to be transported. They seem to be really happy to be there. So it's a good place to be. It's not unlike when you give speeches and talks and stuff. forth, people are, you know, have an audience full of enemies, maybe a couple, you know, and I'm there, you got an enemy. But normally, people are kind of happy to be there. They want to be in the room. So that's a good job to be in a room where people kind of happy to be there. And I do like that process of doing shows. But getting there is always a tough journey, because I'm always leaning higher. I'm not doing the same thing over and over again.

4:49There's no joy in repeating myself and doing the same thing. The joy is going through the process of failing and then succeeding. It's not fun. It's not fun, but the succeeding at it is fun. My show is my show, but after every show, I'm doing a little session in the hallway for 20 people, you know, 20, 30, whoever does a meet and greet. It's a joyous opportunity for me to try things out. And we videotape. And after the show, I look at it and say, oh, if I change this word or I, you know, gesture this way or speak to this person, have this, or change my script or hold the thing. I learn every single time.

5:24And that's kind of fun. And then being able to fix it and solve the problems. I almost looked forward to that as much as the show, doing that process at the end. And then I discover how to make it great. And if I was doing the same thing, I'm just repeating the same thing. It wouldn't be fun. It's because I'm risking trying to take magic in a new direction, changing the language for magic. From what to what? I've got a big library. I've got a gigantic, maybe one of the biggest libraries of magic because that's hundreds of thousands of books of magic. The joy is taking it to a place that doesn't exist in those books.

5:56You know, as you know, my show is not card tricks, even though there's nothing wrong with card tricks. People love them. But that's the same. Each time I do a new piece of magic, I can't play on the same piano. I've got to invent the piano, reinvent the technology each time I do a piece of magic. That's really hard. You know, all the great songwriters, it's hard for them to write a beautiful song, but they still have the piano. They still have the guitar. the instrument is still the same. I've got to have a new piano. I have to have a new instrument. And then comes the story. Then comes the lighting, music, all that come on top of that.

6:27But each time I've got to have a new piano. That's why it's so difficult to have lots and lots of magic. So does the joy come from fooling people? Or is it the joy that you had something that you had to reinvent and you did it and it worked and you see it on your audience's faces? Aha. Or is it just the joy of entertaining? If you were a singer and a dancer, Would you derive the same joy being on the stage? Is it simply the joy of giving people escape? Where do you find fulfillment in all of this? It's changing everything. Fooling people, amazing people is a prerequisite. I have to do that. That is just, I have to, that's nothing interesting about that because I have to do that anyway.

7:07A lot of people focus on just that. Was I amazed? Was I fooled? That's uninteresting to me. I have to do it. I'll make it good. I'll invent the technology to make that happen. Then it's conveying the message, the story, the feeling, the emotion. That's what's interesting. If that connects. If the people in the audience are amazed and cry, then it's interesting. If the people in the audience are amazed and are inspired, then it's interesting. You know, I'm not doing car tricks or escapes. I've done all that. I'm doing dinosaurs, as you know. Yeah, and I love your show. I've seen it a lot of times and I love it.

7:41one of the illusions is this larger than life dinosaur that you cannot believe even fits in the theater appears at some point. And it is astonishing. It is astonishing what it happens. And it also goes 13 feet over the heads of the audience. So it's not watching a stage proscenium. It's at you. It's your living. Yeah. Seen some alien where the face is right in your face. Literally like that. So it's like trying to compete with James Cameron or Spielberg or JJ J.J. Abrams is trying to compete with that. How does it start? Like, where did the original visions come from? Does it start with, what if I could invent a technology that would do this?

8:18Now, how do I build an illusion around it? Or does it start with, what if I could do that now? How do I go backwards? Elton John writes music one particular way. Bernie Taupin sends him a poem, feels the poem, what it is, what it's going to say, and then he writes the music to it. That's their system. That's it. Most of the songwriters don't do that. The answer to most, which comes first, the music or the lyrics. In his case, lyric and then music happens. Most songwriters will say it depends. Most songwriters will say it always depends. Same analogy with my magic. I'll find a new piece of technology and I'll say, wow, this can be really amazing.

8:57And then I'll create the magic and then the story will come afterwards. But sometimes I'll have a story to tell. My father and my mother pass away. I say, I got to figure this out because I didn't say goodbye to my father. let's see all right i know i want to tell that story i know my father was stationed at roswell we found after he's dead he was stationed at roswell when the aliens landed i said okay alien story my father and i didn't say goodbye i thought alien and i thought back to my childhood there was a thing gigantic thing called topo gigio on the ed sullivan show i was in the 60s and it was the people took america by storm it was amazing thing it was a puppet and people behind it and dressed in black would be animated puppet and it was astonishingly lifelike and i started developing technology with a bunch of very talented people making animatronic so i spent a number of years working with people who are very good at animatronics and made a character and i said okay i need uh as part of the story to do something expected of me which is airplane level statu of liberty level that kind of thing a spaceship okay we got a spaceship started working because I needed a spaceship to appear.

10:09That was the journey of that. So it started with the need to have a spaceship appear that I started working on that. That's a five-year journey to make all that come together. I wrote a script and I had friends of mine, Frank Darabont, you know, Shawshank Redemption. He helped me with the script, comedy. We had Mike Reese from The Simpsons. Who's been on the podcast, who's wonderful. The audience hated it, by the way. You know, the first two years, they just didn't like it. Why am I being so indulgent with 30 minutes of the show? Disaster. And I just remembered all those stories of Casablanca or Cabaret, which they say really were bad until they just tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and got it right.

10:51So I got a lot of strength in believing in something that didn't work. And then the third year, kind of starting to see a light. I got to give you credit here. You're in the entertainment business. The applause, the reviews, like these things matter in the entertainment business. What I so admire is when it doesn't work, that you're willing not to take it off the show and try and reinvent it, then reintroduce it, which is usually what people do. But you leave it in the show and you tweak it and you tweak it and you tweak it and you tweak it. I mean, to keep something in a show for two years until it worked.

11:27I mean, it's either stupid or ballsy. I can't figure it out. how come you didn't say to yourself okay it's a good idea I can't make it work so you know what we gave it a good try we left it in for a year we tweaked the heck out of it I'm going to take it out of the show what makes you so pig headed that you keep at it believing that at some point it's going to work I owed it to my dad that was a big part of it and I believed in it I just believed that I could get it right has there been an illusion that you've worked on that actually you did quit and say, okay, it's not going to work and I'm taking it off the stage.

12:05Has that happened? One time, insignificantly, it was a thing that I thought was a funny thing. Make your own magician. You have a piece of Gumby. You have a piece of Marilyn Monroe. You'd have a thing and whatever you selected, I came out as a combination of these characters. It was something that didn't last long. People didn't like it, but I wasn't invested. I didn't really believe in it that much. It was kind of a fun thing. I didn't have the graphitas that I would need to stick with it. You know, in Pixar land, the things that they end up doing after it failing, there is a bit of a heart or a soul that they have to get through.

12:42This was an example of that for me. It's not stubbornness. I also kind of know when it's right. I'll feel. One of my good things, I listen. I'm a pretty good listener. I listen. And I'll know when it's right. And I'll know that I can make it work. I don't know how, but I know I can make it work. And it's just like every single great thing that's taking place on Earth, you know, whether it's inventions or electricity or light bulb. There's so much failure and failure. And flight, the act of flying is 400 years from Da Vinci to the Wright brothers. 400 years. It's crazy. You know, they're close.

13:16It's so close. They know a bird can fly, but we couldn't get it right. And then finally, after Da Vinci drew it, it took 400 years to do it. As you know, I'm working on stuff that is real stuff with physicists and stuff to try to harness the power of gravity. We're probably hundreds of years away from really doing it. I know it can work, but to plant the seed, to find the way and find a bunch of smart people to finally make it work so gravity can be our ally. And I think a lot of it is knowing that there is a goal there. It's a hard goal, but eventually chip away at it and it happens like the airplane, like flight.

13:53human flight. I love this idea of something having soul. The one illusion that you abandoned is like, it's fine. If it worked, it would have been fun. If it didn't work... Soulless. It was soulless. It was soulless. Yeah. It might've been cute or fun or clever, but it was soulless. When I think about marketing or I think about product development, there's not really a good language to describe when a project or a company has soul. I think we talk around it. We talk about authenticity. We talk about purpose. None of those words or concepts really capture what I think what you're saying here, which is it has soul.

14:27If I just think out loud, when does something have soul is when I think we find we have an emotional relationship with that thing. You didn't have an emotional relationship with make your own magician, but you had a deep emotional relationship with obviously the story of your dad and you didn't get to say goodbye to him and you wanted to share that story. I mean, you had a deep emotional relationship, which is why it was worth continuing to invest in it. It's hard to find something that you really feel that way about, that you're committed to. The things that I think back, I knew when I was going to fly, that was worth spending seven years on.

15:02It's worth it because I knew - Seven years. Yeah, yeah. To get it really, really right. And you can feel it and people would probably do it. I want to change tacks slightly here. You do something that I don't even know if you do, that it took me a while to adjust to. And now I actually have learned from you and I actually do this, which is the way you ask questions of people. I'll say like, oh, I love that movie. And you'll say, what did you love about it? Or I, yeah, I didn't really care for it. And you'll say, what didn't you care for? you always question someone's opinion to understand the details underlying.

15:41And when the first few times you did it to me, I took it really personally. It was actually unnerving. And I realized some of the times we say things flippantly, oh yeah, I love that. I hate that. And we actually don't love or hate it. We just say things flippantly. And when you ask the question, well, what did you hate about it? You don't have an answer. I find that so fascinating that you want to know someone's reasoning for liking or disliking something because you're so detail obsessed and such a perfectionist that even in your way of asking questions, you want to understand the nuance of everything.

16:14I don't even know if you know that you do that. Definitely know that I do it. I definitely do. Because I want to see what's so good about it. But do you know that sometimes it pushes people on their heels? That I wasn't really... I didn't know that. That's interesting that it puts you back. Because people aren't prepared. because they haven't thought about it. Sometimes they just say, oh, I liked it or I didn't like it. I really want to know. I want to know because I want to learn from it. Back when I was a kid, Neil Diamond was this gigantic touring show like Taylor Swift. And people say, I went to see him.

16:44That was the best show I've ever seen. And I go, well, I haven't, I didn't see it. He's the greatest intern of all time. And I go, why? I want to know why. What can I do to be, I'm 12 years old. Why is that? Why? What is it? Well, he did this and the attitude. Well, okay, I want to know what can I learn from that? But as you know, detail is everything to me. You see the levels of detail. And you and I have had a little disagreement about that in the very beginning. You came to a resort that I had and you made fun of me for my detail. You made fun of me. What I didn't understand, the reason you're so good at what you do is you understand that the angel is in the details.

17:24You're playing with our senses, our ears and our eyes, and we're alert. And I understand that to do the things you do at the level you have to do them, the obsession with detail is an absolute must. And it's not something you do for work. It is who you are. Your obsession with detail and everything, it's your personality. And I recognize that it comes out everywhere. I've learned to love and not roll my eyes, but actually now love that you see things that nobody else sees. I think I've told this story on the podcast before, and I think I've told you before, the story of Walt Disney and the animatronic parrot.

18:04Disneyland is a new park, and the Disney Imagineers make an animatronic parrot that is perfect in every detail. It moves like a parrot. It looks like a parrot. It's got feathers on it. And they're so excited to show it to Walt Disney. They bring him over and they make it move, and they're all excited. and Walt says, nope, no one will believe it. And they go, Walt, what are you doing? It's perfect in every detail. And he said, no, it's not breathing. And they said, no one will notice. And he replied, people can feel perfection. And that's 100 % true, which is if people went on that ride and saw the bird, no one would say, it's not breathing, but they'd all say, I don't know, it just doesn't feel real to me.

18:47And he understood that these details that superficially don't matter, matter. That's where you, I think, are one of the best in the world is seeing the details that people don't realize that matter, matter. And it makes the experience so much more profoundly better, even though you wouldn't know what it was. Your ability to see that stuff, I actually find quite amazing. And I didn't understand it when I first met you. That is true. And now I think it's a superhuman power you have. I think it's a superpower. That's why I'm here. that's why i've lasted this time every single thing is important you know as you've talked about in your work everything's important the graphics important the music's important everything's important yeah you know i will not put something in the show for two years because i can't find the right piece of music everything will be great but the piece of music is not i wouldn't even put it in the show you know and there's still so much work to do but our lives are works in progress right i know you've derived inspiration from the magicians of all the greats of the past.

19:45Not that many. That's not true. Not that many. Okay. So who from the past, even recent history, do you look to, not just because you're like, no, they were good at their craft, but you maybe have a worthy rival, someone who's actually did something better than you, that you've actually made yourself better because of them. Like, who from the past has made you better? Magicians. Magicians, yeah. There's only one magician that really was Gene Kelly level, Fred Astaire level, coppola level and he wasn't an inventor you know the reason you don't know him is because he wasn't a complete package but he did one thing he performed classic effects not original effects not going through the work i do there was a magician named rishi ardy who moved a certain way when did he live he died in 70s okay so it was 50 60 70s 40 somewhere in there but he was a great performer that's it not inventing he spoke okay he wasn't a star because he couldn't speak but when he moved, when he did certain effects, it was as good as it gets.

20:45And I think about him in the show every night. That's one person as far as performing goes. As far as inventing goes, Robert Houdin and George Melies, you can Google them. They invented great magic. I take a lot of inspiration from the fact that these guys invented the cinema, invented automatons, invented change magic in their time, as I'm attempting to do in my time. I think people be surprised when I ask, who you look to as worthy rivals from the past that made you better what you do now that you didn't say Houdini. You know, Houdini is so famous. He worked hard at being famous. He didn't invent very much stuff.

21:21He was a great publicist, great publicist, and found a soul. And the soul was escaping from stuff. He was an okay magician. Not the greatest magician, honestly. No, but he found, when he escaped from handguns, escaping something that resonated with people. people who were at a time very bound up and kind of had a lot of trouble in the world. He was a guy that was a superhero. Escaping. It wasn't about his magic. It was about escaping and challenging. You know, a lot of it was kind of all a setup, you know, to get publicity for the newspaper and whatever like that. But he was brilliant at it. Did he invent anything?

21:57Not really. Was he a great performer? They say not. That's funny because he was like so many artists today. Fine, but brilliant marketers go outside of magic. But who are the people today that you look to and be like, damn, that's good. I think, you know, the Wednesday dance is pretty cool. Why did that work? She has this amazing, compelling look. The choice of the music, it's kind of captivating. You know, it's amazing. The Wednesday dance? Yeah. What is that? Well, there's a show called Wednesday that Tim Burton has. And Jenna Ortega is an amazing star of this show. But this is the dance. This choice of things is a wonderful viral thing that is just like kind of compelling.

22:43It has a soul to it. Yeah, there you go. Is there something that you have a vision for that has a story to it, that has soul, that you haven't figured out how to make it work yet? You said it took seven years for you to perfect flying. Is there something that's in your workshop that's been there for five years, six years, that you're still tinkering that it's not ready for public consumption yet, and you can't get it right, but my God, you believe in it. You're never going to quit. This gravity thing is like that. I certainly know how to prototype that on stage, how to make gravity look controllable.

23:17But to make that real and to get really, really smart people thinking about that, how to really harness it like we harnessed electricity, to make this whole climate issue frictionless. I'm developing things for my show to communicate a message in a non-preach you way to maybe inspire people to kind of make little changes to leave a better world for our kids. That's something that I'm very interested in. You know, one of the things I don't think I've ever told you, I remember the first time you asked me to look at one of your scripts for something you were working on. And I was honest and told you what I thought and, you know, tried to offer some point of you.

23:59And eventually I came to the show and I saw one of the very first versions of the script that I had the opportunity to see and offer comment on before it became a real thing. And some of my notes were in the show. And as the show progressed, as that illusion progressed, the order of the things were some of the notes that I had given and they changed. And I can't tell you how proud I felt. Every time I would see that illusion, I was like, I felt so proud that I had a little bit to do with that. And I just, I, you know, I have immense gratitude that you let me contribute to something that mattered to you that had soul.

24:38So I don't think I've ever told you that, but thank you for letting me contribute because it meant a lot to me. Yeah. That's nice to hear. But the fact is, you know, it's the opposite of what you're saying. You know, I'm thankful to you. You know, I've got a lot of smart friends, right? And, and I reach out to them and make myself vulnerable. And I listen. I'm a good list. One of my good things. I'm a good listener. You're a good listener too. And to listen and just think about it. And you know, we're not alone. A lot of people that I have had amazing success that I've had the chance to meet, share that sponge magnetic thing.

25:15Michael Jackson will make you feel like you're smarter than him he would make you feel like he cared about your opinions and thoughts it was amazing and then you realize wait a minute even about music he'd ask and he's wondering he'd squint his eyes and go well what do you what do you mean by that why he's like this warren baity would ask incredible questions it's like why are you doing barbra streisand same thing you know she would just like want to act like an empty barrel that was smarter because you fill that barrel with information and try to motivate. It's funny that you see yourself and people that have done very, very well you look up to.

25:54Yeah. I guess we should underline that point, which is you're so good at what you do, you're considered one of the best in the business, one of the best magicians ever. And yet it's true. When you're working on something, you go to lots of people and you are vulnerable and you say, I can't make this work. Will you look at it? I don't know how to solve this problem. Will you look at it? I'm stuck here. when you look at it and you show it to, you don't have like one trusted confidant. You know, you'll call people and sometimes even call people you don't know, but you know them from industry that you admire their work and you'll reach out to them and say, can you look at this for me?