Paul Zerdin: What happens after you win Amercia’s Got Talent

0:00I kind of, you know, I had like a mini breakdown at one point.

0:02Paul Zerdin: Just before I walked on stage, I thought, why am I doing this? Welcome back to What's the Trick? I am your host, Ben Hanlon, and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people and try and understand their creative process. And today's guest is a world class ventriloquist and a Brit that went over to America and won America's Got Talent. it is paul zerdin and i really wanted to speak to him because i've admired his career for decades but i wanted to know well first of all how do you do that how do you go over to america and win it but what actually happens after you win a show like that what is the reality and he talked me through it all and he talked me through what happens when you have your own headline vegas show and things don't always go to plan on what's in the contract we go through it all so i'm just going to bring you up to speed on Paul if you haven't heard about his career before I'm just going to try and give you the highlights it started off in about the 90s where he was a GMTV's children's show presenter on Rise and Shine and then he won Jonathan Ross's ITV talent competition the big big talent show and then from there he's become one of the busiest ventriloquists in the UK he's been on the Raw Variety show I think two or three times he did almost everything you could achieve in the UK and then he decided in 2015 let's give America a go and he went on America's Got Talent and he won the thing so that's where we're going to start I'm going to dive into this conversation it's really really different chat enjoy this one it's What's the Trick with Paul Zerden.

1:34Paul Zerdin: Welcome to What's the Trick Paul Zerden. Good morning good question how are you? Very good first question paul how do you win america's got talent well i actually had never thought about doing a talent show since i did a show years ago on itv called the big big talent show which i won like mid 90s i i then thought i wouldn't ever do a talent show and i got so far sort of you know with my career to a certain point in this country i i then felt so um i don't know frustrated that i couldn't get any further i've done lots of pilots for my own show lots of guest appearances over the years constantly developing uh projects and shows with producers and production companies and then you'd get to the stumbling block that was the commissioning editor well we like paul but you know yeah anyway so i was just so fed up i just thought i'll go over to america and have a go a talent show and i will um just give it a go and with that was when you obviously signed up to that and you've got this good career behind you you know you've got the chops the skills and we'll dive down into the axe but was there a goal in mind did you think at the end of this i then want to be able to do x y and z off the back of it yeah i wanted to get my own tv show basically and i wanted to be able to have a bigger profile and do bigger gigs bigger theaters and um you know i just thought america was a much bigger market so that could filter home and it will help my career in the uk and and abroad generally i just thought I'll just give it a go and see how it goes.

3:05And it went really well. Yeah, just a bit. And I really loved the process. And I did my first audition, which was at the Dolby Theatre. And just before I walked on stage, I thought, why am I doing this? I'm literally walking out, putting myself in a position where I've been doing this for 25 years. So I've got a good career. Everything's fine. I'm going to walk out in front of these judges. And you can hear when you're backstage, you know, and you're waiting around. I got there. I had to be there at like seven o 'clock in the morning and then I was supposed to be I think they were doing two or three shows in an afternoon and they kept on pushing me back and I ended up going on the last show and then in the last section I think of the show so I didn't go on stage until about nine o 'clock or nine thirty at night and I'd been there all day and I literally had lost the will to live by that point and I didn't care and I'd filmed a load of sort of b-roll interviews and stuff but every so often you'd hear this and I go oh my god it's like terrifying this sound but um i just gave myself a bit of a talking to and just thought go out and just do what you do

4:02Paul Zerdin: well let's well let's break it down then so you applied to go on the show and unlike britain's got talent the america's got talents it's basically five rounds and then there's another spot at the end but let's focus on these five rounds let's work out i would really like to know how did you think about these acts did you go in there and say to the producers right this is going to be at one two three four five did you say the best till last but if you do that you might not get to the last what was the thought process of all at that point that's a really good question and um for the first spot i just worked out what i was going to do and um and just thought i'll do this and see what happens then that went well um and then i went back to do the what they called the judges cuts which is when i got a golden buzzer um and around about that time um i can't remember if it was before or after you're assigned a producer so there's lots of producers but there's there's one person looking after you and a few other acts and called meg in my case and she said what would you do if you got to the finals you know tell me what you would do and so i just sort of wrote out roughly uh for the next spot i would do this i'd finish on this bit then i'd probably finish on this bit i'd have sam coming alive it's an animatronic thing that idea that would be that bit i'd then do my human dummy routine with maybe maybe one of the judges um and just i sort of i kind of mapped it out roughly and they were she was really helpful and said okay okay okay that's great i would probably do that first and then if you got to that next round i would do that instead and just switched a couple of things around and in your head we also this is the thing i really want to get into because i think i watch people on those shows and i always wonder this question how much of those five bits were tried tested worked on for years versus here's a new bit of put in for the show um it was all based on tried and tested yeah so i was never going out on stage going oh my god no i've done this before yes i've seen people do that i thought wow that takes some balls and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't yeah um i started one of my spots with a whole new bit but i was going into a bit that that i knew was absolutely solid um so there was never any it was a calculated risk um all of it but i i i knew what i was going to do i'd change things around to suit the you know the occasion one of my um really good friends and who helped me write as well he was a massive fan of howard stern who was who was the simon cowell character yeah in season 10 uh and and he gave me some some extra lines about howard stern and and his his catch phrases and things which i didn't know i was a fan of house then but i didn't know him as well as my my mate phil did and so i had little things like that which we sort of customized yeah but um generally it was it was tried and tested it was just tweaked to to fit the show and for those that people that haven't sat down and watched all of your spots back to back can i can we just get a little listen of sam what i've not done the voice yeah can we just because i just i just love the sound yeah go ahead give us how does sam sound well at the moment i've got a bit of a sore throat because I've been rehearsing the new material for the tour.

7:15But Sam is... Hello. Hi. Oi. Well, we're here with Ben. Ben. Ben.

7:25Paul Zerdin: With a B. Ben. You can't see this. If you're listening to this on Apple Podcast or wherever it is, Paul's not moving his mouth, obviously. Try not. He's a ventriloquist. So anyway, so you started with Sam. And then in other rounds, then the way you made it different is you had things like, like you said, an animatronic where you walk off and then people think that the puppet is not going to move and then all of a sudden it comes to life so that's another surprise then you did I mean you did other things well then you did the mask thing where you put a mask on Howie and you made him this human puppet so it was quite nice that in every stage there was almost another bit of theater that you were playing with in that for those five acts yeah and because I'd been touring for a long time um I'd always had different endings and so i was able to use those different endings and uh in into the end of each spot so i had somewhere to go and so going from you know uh the quarterfinals live shows at the at the radio city then you know you think right what do you do after that well then so from the radio control puppet then it was the human dummy and then for the final um it was a mixture of all of them so we had radio controlled albert was radio controlled on a mobility scooter which i'd used on my tour so i knew that got a good reaction it was a good visual uh with him and then i had the baby in the car seat and i think he was i had a car seat that was radio controlled so it could rock it was a little i've got this this friend called tim rose who is um admiral akabar and star wars and lots of other characters and muppets uh and movies and stuff he's done everything and he he's built all my radio control stuff over the years animatronic stuff and i said tim for years ago i said i want the baby to come alive with this whole big number which is where albert on his scooter came in sam comes alive and we did this big song at the end of the show and the baby would start rocking and then give it jazz hands as well yeah yeah they the size of the the car seat and he literally just he figured out a way of having this little this kind of steel rod that poked out of the bottom of the uh the car seat and just rocked it just pushed it and it just started rocking and it just had a natural did it was so you know what i was looking i was this is how sad i am everyone's watching the act i'm going how is this thing rocking is it on a wire is it on some sort of ball that's moving and no it's just a rod pointing down to me anyway really sad just a rocket i love that's the magician and the you know yeah there's well why we're doing this uh thing so you know it's bomb proof you've worked it a thousand times and then producers often get involved and start changing it and and you're like well hold on i know this works yeah how much was there a push and a pull from producers to change your act um for me i have to say um i i had a really easy ride because um i was able to show them footage of me doing uh routines before i um got to do it on the show i'd say oh this is the routine that i'm talking about i'd send them the script so that they had to had to get approval from nbc lawyers and all that sort of stuff make sure it wasn't too rude and i was a bit naughty on the show so they were always checking um but i would um send them a a tape or a tape a dvd or a you know an mpeg or whatever i'd send it over and they go oh yeah we got it so they understood what i was talking about and that helped enormously um but i think i i was i think they knew that i kind of knew what i was doing and i wasn't like I wasn't pocky I wasn't um you know overly confident but I was confident um and I and I I'd been doing it for a long time so I you know I knew what I did was going to work or I believed it would you never know going out in front of a load of judges someone might not like you and just go I don't like you and buzz you or something but um I I had also had experience from performing for American audiences a lot of these for on cruise ships so I knew that the material worked and and i suppose as well if you're a producer and you're dealing with these hundred of acts that are coming in and out and there's lots of craziness having an act that you don't have to do anything with just be like you know what that's in a box yeah he's not a headache i'll deal with one of my other problems on my list it makes their life a lot easier definitely yeah and i and i had a i had a great producer and um she just said i think that's great that what you're going to do there i think that'll be really good she might just say all of that that one's a bit naughty the lawyers are a bit funny about that can you cut sam off when he's about to say that word and so there are a few things like that because it was a live show as well they were slightly terrified that anyone would say anything but i have got friends that were on um the british version and did not have such a good experience and were told well we want you to do this and they were like well i i normally do this well we think you should do this and this will be much better and i and and they were telling me that you know they kind of got you know persuaded to do things that they weren't normally and you've and you've heard about this with singers where they want to sing a song and then they've been told to sing a different song and the judges go well I'd have seen that song and they don't say it live but it's your team that told me that anyway let's talk about because this is the biggest show probably in the world in entertainment it's live from Radio City and when you got to the live stages and they go right next up you're on and as a performer I'm already thinking about like that already makes me a bit tight in my stomach of red light walking on stage how were you feeling at that moment and how did you deal with it how did you keep keep you cool and i remember the first showcase i ever did when i was like 17 um and there were there was a compare and it was a comedian and various other acts and they were all pacing around and then someone said to me oh they're doing the showcase pace yeah this always happens and then i remember years later someone just before i went on doing a tv spot someone said enjoy it make sure you enjoy it otherwise you know it's it's you're torturing yourself and i thought that's a really good bit of advice and so just before i walked out on stage the first the first live show the quarter finals at radio city i just thought go on just go out there and enjoy this this is a massive moment there's a lot of people watching at home and in the theater just go and do it but i i wanted to i i have to say i loved it i really loved the whole process of it and i thought well this is what i've you know i've been doing this for at that point i'd been doing it for about 25 years and I was lucky to do you know various tv spots and things over the years and I started as a kids tv presenter early on so I did two years working for Disney and so I I was very comfortable in front of a camera and I was very you know I felt very I felt comfortable with my material but you know it could have gone wrong someone could have buzzed me I mean literally just on one of the the live shows I just wanted to get to the finals yeah but the but you're there was a lot of camaraderie and so you were looking you know looking out for your your fellow performers because you all you wanted them all to do well and when suddenly one of them gets buzzed and gets voted off you're like well hang on a minute wait and you never see them again you know that's a shock yeah um until it is an interesting question when did when did you think that you were going to win this or when did you get indications of i've got a good i've got a chance here i didn't i didn't really i didn't really ever think about it i just i knew i wanted to get to the finals because I would have more exposure.

14:33So you're kind of prepared for everything and anything. But it wasn't until I got to the top, I think it was in the sort of top five, I was thinking, oh, okay. Well, that's encouraging. They seem to like what I do. But I genuinely thought that they would vote for an American, especially when it was down to me and... I can't remember his name. That's terrible.

14:53Paul Zerdin: There's a comedian. Well, that's showbiz. Here's a question, because I've seen your bits on that year, but I haven't watched the whole series. And don't be modest here. be i want honesty here why do you think you won because that year you were the best contestant and what was it about your act or you that you think everyone voted for um i i honestly don't know i think maybe people had seen enough singers i don't know there's something about the american um sort of psyche the the sesame street right i think that everyone loves a puppet and jim henson and is so steeped in American history, well, around the world.

15:37I think there's something about the Muppets, and I think because I've always used those kind of puppet characters, the soft figures, as they say in America, I think everyone loves a puppet. And there's something, even though it's such an old fashioned art form in a way, I was trying to, and am trying to do it in a, and have always tried to do it in an up-to-date modern way um there's something about that it was i think people felt sort of comfortable with it can we just talk about that difference for a moment

16:05Paul Zerdin: actually because again i've been watching a lot of your stuff and other ventriloquism over the last few days and for though again for those that maybe haven't seen paul's work your puppets are very much like muppets so soft spongy quite cute and cuddly right yeah but when people think of ventriloquism they think of that old, almost wooden doll thing that just, creepy. And you did a spot with Terry Vader, I think it was, next to essentially that puppet. And I remember going, if that was in my bedroom at night and I woke up, it would be terrifying. And I don't know if there's a thing. I'm like, I don't want, it freaks me out.

16:40Paul Zerdin: Those are just not vibing there. And yours are so much, it's almost a totally different tone to it almost. It hasn't helped over the years that they've always been depicted as like psycho killers in movies. and yeah and that's what dramas yeah i think that thing was going to move when i'm not looking at it yeah yeah and so um i knew that i it had to be something muppety okay so yeah i'll tell you what then so paul so you win the show you are the winner and you get two prizes and on america's got talent you win a million dollars and you win a headline show in vegas so let's start with the money because some people might not realize this there's a bit of controversy about do you actually you win a million dollars so my question to you if you're able to talk about it did you win a million dollars um well he can't talk about it um well I want to talk about no you know you can't talk about it what do you mean you can't talk about it you signed an NDA apparently I can't talk about it you can't talk because you signed an NDA um well I I had a feeling you might say this so they make you sign an NDA so you can't do it so I asked Chachi BT do you win a million dollars and it says you get two options option one is you do get your million dollars over 40 years and they give you 25 000 a year or you can take a lump sum up front and it's anywhere from 250 to 450 250 000 to 450 000 in a lump sum which i'm guessing most people would do are you able to thermal deny it i definitely did one of them fine you did one of them and i would imagine but isn't it interesting saying you're not allowed to comment so i expect to be i'm talking to myself right now i just find it really interesting i do that that they're living but anyway so that was the money side of it right let's talk about the really interesting the vega show so what actually happens after you win how do you then end up having your own vega show so you win the you you win the show and then um a uh nbc uh press person grabs hold of you and marches you around um from studio to studio to interview to interview for the next sort of few days and you end up doing these things called uh satellite media tours where you sit in a darkened room and you do um 50 interviews literally every breakfast show in every state uh and then radio and all sorts of shows and it's a fantastic experience but it is like a whirlwind it really is and then uh the that year the prize was three nights in uh in vegas at planet hollywood so about um end of the i think probably a month later i then do three nights where i'm headlining and there's a couple of other acts from from agc from that season on as well during those three nights so that was it that's basically you get some money and then you get the then you get the three nights uh in in vegas during that run or that the three nights show someone from caesar's entertainment saw me and said hey this guy should have his own show and like you're stuck exactly and so i then i had already got i had commitments uh back home in the uk and so i then went back home to play buttons in cinderella in theater royal plymouth and during that christmas i got an offer for a three-year contract for vegas for my own show headlining at planet hollywood and i said oh that's really lovely but i actually i don't i don't want to be stuck in vegas i want to be doing i want to do a tv show i want to do uh i want to get my own show off the ground i want to tour i live in london uh you know i'd love to go in and do some shows in vegas i don't want to live in vegas and then my then agent was saying no no you you this is what you've worked for all your life i said no it isn't i said that's amazing don't get me wrong this is incredible and the money was incredible i said but i don't want to live in vegas i said my parents live in london i live in london this is my family's there so when somebody offers you a three-year contract in vegas let's say how many days of the year would that is that that's six six shows a week with possibility of adding more wow and then you know a week's holiday here and there so you're pretty much full-time living there there's no doing anything else other than that right yeah right now i had also uh just about i was about to agree um a pantomime at the london palladium which was the first year back it was the palladium pantomime was a big thing years ago yeah and then a producer called michael harrison brought it back to uh the palladium and they offered me buttons in cinderella which was my i'd done cinderella for for years and years and years and pantomime lots of pantomimes over the years every christmas i'd done it um and so this was like the ultimate so i actually had to do that So I agreed to do that.

21:27Then I kept turning down this Vegas offer. And eventually they wore me down because the money just kept going up. When you say no, no, it's such a powerful word I've learned. Even if you're not in a position to say no, sometimes it's good to say no because, you know, quite often they'll come back and say, all right, well, and offer you more money. So I didn't want to do it, but I talked to everyone and they went, oh, come on, you're going to have to do that. I said, I don't want to live in the desert for three years with a two year option. So it could have been five years.

21:55Paul Zerdin: Anyway, if they offer you the five, you have to take it. No, it was three years. But if, if they had an option, so they could continue it for another two years. But, but in theory, and again, we're not going into detail, but if, if you would have accepted that and it won for three years, would that money have set you up that you would then not have to worry about money? Like, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, it was really good money. I mean, it, I think I probably still would have still had to have worked, but I like working. I can't imagine not working. You know, I'm in a position now where I can pick and choose a bit more than I used to.

22:27But yeah, definitely would have made things easier. And so I agreed to it. But it was complicated because I already had a spring tour in the diary. And I had an autumn tour as well in the UK. And in between this time, so straight away, I got signed to an agency called CAA in America, one of the biggest agents in the agencies in the world and then i was getting gigs so i would be asked to go out and do a casino in in an indian reservation in canada or new york state whatever and they were paying amazing honey i'd go and do my hour and a half show then i have an interval in american shows stand-up shows you go straight through um which i love that because sometimes it can when you're doing your show it breaks it you have to say about endings and intros and yeah Whereas this, you just do your set, just get on with it.

23:18And I was doing lots of those, coming backwards and forwards. And then they agreed that I would do the show in Vegas. And then when I was out doing a gig in Canada, I had this director. They said, you've been assigned as a director. He's going to direct your show. Oh, okay. So we're starting to write the Vegas show. Whilst I'm going backwards and forwards, doing shows in America and Canada, and still doing the spring tour dates in the UK. I then canceled the autumn tour. And I saw this sort of social media backlash happen. like oh yeah that's great you don't want us now do you now it's now that you've hit the big time in america and it's like no it's just it's an opportunity what would you do you you know and don't start you know yeah replying to people that is i've learned yeah on social media anyway um we we wrote the show uh when i say we i mean me and my my writer friends and then i moved to vegas but I was, I was kind of in disarray because I was, I was literally living out of the suitcase and, and I didn't really want to go live in the desert for three years.

24:16And then you got to try and find a house. Yeah. Then you're like, well, do I get a car? We have to rent a car. You know, no one helps you with that. You have to do all that. So you get yourself a realtor when you go to Vegas, that's an estate agent, a posh. So it was like a personal manager, estate agent. Yeah. So you get this realtor who's then taking you when you, when I was back in doing some shows and press in Vegas, I was then looking for accommodation. So I started the show and I was living in planet hollywood in one of their suites for the first few weeks was that cool or did you go a bit it was i mean it was exciting definitely but it was also it was a bit weird but hold on

24:48Paul Zerdin: you're headlining a show at planet hollywood you're in the suite upstairs yeah that's really cool i know that sounds one day you'll look back and go that was pretty it was a crazy time but i think because it was so so so busy and it was so everything was so sort of just frantic you didn't have a moment to stop and think about it and i hear people talk about you know when like you know boy bands yeah you know in the peak of their their their career and their the the height of their fame they go through this and they look back and go well we didn't have time to talk about it yeah you know i'm not comparing myself to a some sort of you know crazy boy band but it there were there are similarities because it was it was a whirlwind um and then i got into the show and after a month of renting my house out in the uk and renting a house i signed for about nine months the company he then said we're going to have to give you a you're going to have to take a payment a pay cut and i remember going uh what sorry what yeah what and then and then we we ended up um i had to get lawyers involved and it became a bit complicated really trying to work things out because i was like well hang on i've just emigrated i've just agreed to be here for three years and now you're offering me half the money that you've you've said and and i i don't want to go into it because it's boring but it ended up being a summer fraught with legal issues with lawyers and stuff and that really marred the experience because i was enjoying doing the show the audiences were fantastic and i i ran for about six months and then we finished in september i think it was september um and i kind of had had enough to be honest and it was it was it was i'd been to vegas a lot over the years seeing shows seeing david copperfield seeing circus today you know i loved vegas i never thought i never ever came away from vegas going i love to work there and live there yeah because it's so intense and it's so hot the heat what is the hardest thing to do invent ventriloquism

26:41well i guess it's the the hard letters like b b's and p's which are again your tongue creates the sound uh which is um funny enough i'm i'm writing a routine at the moment with my baby who's got a bumblebee outfit he comes on as a bumblebee and and the whole thing is about i don't want him to say the word bumblebee because i can't say it it's difficult or he knows it's difficult so he wants to say it but i keep on saying oh i like your that's a lovely outfit your bumblebee outfit no you can't say i don't want you saying bumblebee bumblebee does that sound right did that sound okay i can't sometimes i have to look in the mirror and just make sure my lips aren't moving um but bumblebee b b and p would be hard to say but but again use this is just it's practice

27:23Paul Zerdin: just to sum up then so it was i'm guessing is it the the pay cut is due to the the show probably not selling as many tickets well i i guess i never saw the figures they never showed me the figures so we never had a bad house i looked out and i did however many shows 100 shows whatever it was i looked out every night it was never i never looked out and go oh things are a bit in it's always a good house so so i but i never got to see the figures and and i remember saying to my agent in london saying well should i not have seen some you know know what's going on i was being paid a ut fee you know um and um and i and i agreed to take this pay cut and then and i just said well i'm i can't stay here we're earning this money for this long i can earn more than this doing going back with my life before so i look back and go it was an incredible experience what they don't tell you is you are going to be doing promotion all the time for the show so they would fly me out to la i'd do another satellite media tour i'd sit in a darkened room with a cameraman we'd do 25 interviews on every breakfast show in the morning we'd been there since like you know every week cameraman like literally dropping off because he's so tired it's such an early start so you'd be publicizing then you're going flying over to new york to do the today show on nbc to publicize the show again and you do all those shows when you win when you win your show so I felt like oh here I am again you know it's like I'm not blasé but but it's this constant beast that needs feeding is yeah every week it's what are the ticket sales what are the tickets they then they don't tell you oh this is a thing that happens you go out and they take you out into the the PR company that's looking after your show takes you drives you out into the desert into one of these big ticketing units which is I don't know 45 minutes out of the desert where they sell all the tickets for the shows and you go in there and you take cupcakes with your show poster printed onto these these fairy cakes yeah cupcakes and you do a spot for them in the office and then you sign posters and you're pushing your show so that if they get a phone call then they push paul's erdick they've seen him you've done a bit in their office oh my god this guy's really funny you got to go and see this show it's cold whatever you know even when you win america's got talent you're just doing easy on the yeah it was like doing a really dodgy corporate yeah or like an edinburgh fringe giving out flyers yes completely and then and then i remember i was with one of my best friends chris who came out and from england he came out to be my sort of he was like a pa and also additional puppeteer in the show and and he came with me on these like these pr gigs and we would be at a taxi rank in just at the edge of the strip vegas taxi major taxi rank and they said you got to go and do a show for the changeover shift of all the taxi drivers so they all see you and I literally was standing this is midday baking heat in a suit with with a puppet doing my act for about six blokes having their sandwiches because they just finished their shift and they've been on since the morning and then the new shift are coming in and about to start their their shift in the afternoon and I'm doing this show with flyering again and you've just won America's Got Talent this is the bit though and I'm thank you for sharing this because this is the area this is the bit we don't see like we see this this side of showbiz where you're on the biggest show in the world glossy you're in yeah so shiny you got simon calo ever there oh you're gonna win a million dollars but actually the reality is you got to print you put your face on some cupcakes and sell sell sell and eventually it still might not work because i'm guessing without even knowing the figures maybe the business side is the casino or someone spent money they shouldn't have spent money somewhere and through no fault of your own the show doesn't doesn't exist yes bizarre world isn't it yeah it was hilarious and those were the times that i really found you know very i was like we were laughing about it because it was yeah it's all you could do it was so ridiculous but you know do you know somebody would have driven past that going that looks like the guy the ventriloquist oh it can't be here no he's on the side of the street um so i tell you that whole experience and and it sounds actually like you've got your priorities in order because you're like you know it's not just about am I actually going to enjoy the next few years of my life when you look back at that whole experience what are the learnings that you've taken from that so they brought forward the opening of the the show in Vegas by about I don't know maybe a month and I remember going well this really makes things you know tight but they were they were really rushing it and I should have just on should have just said no yeah because it's your face on the on the show isn't it yeah I can't cope with this i i i kind of you know i had like a mini breakdown at one point because it was just so stressful i didn't know where i was and also you're fighting jet lag constantly because you're literally on and off long haul flights all the time which sounds really glamorous and i love flying and i love and i love traveling i i love this job because we get to travel all over the place and get to go to amazing places i literally was just completely frazzled and and it was like I suddenly had a burnout in the space of a few months because it was so, my diary was so ridiculous.

32:22Paul Zerdin: And that, what you've explained there, I bet is absolutely replicated through actors or especially musicians, right? You hear that story of exactly that. The managers and the agents go, right, it's going to be there, there, there, there, there. Did you see the Bruce Springsteen biopic that came out recently? It was a film. I don't think I did, but I'm aware of it. And it's all about, it's interesting actually. It was all about Bruce Springsteen writing the Nebraska album. Anyway, and he was at the height of his fame. He was actually just before, I think, Born in the USA. But he was about to burn out.

32:52Paul Zerdin: But what was really interesting is a dynamic between him and his manager in that film. I don't know how true it is. But the manager basically seemed to keep him protected from all of the noise. And he was like, what do you need? Do you need more time? And he would fight all the battles. And it feels like in that moment, if you'd have had somebody a bit more experienced to go, what do you need from me? that person to shield all the noise i was doing celebrity who wants to be a millionaire in vegas which was being filmed at bally's in bally's casino in vegas and um there was an issue and hello this is ben it's a short commercial break but for regular listeners you'll know it's not really a commercial break because haven't gotten his sponsors but i did want to take a minute or so to give paul a shout out so this is paul zerdin amazing ventriloquist he's on tour in september and his shut your mouth tour so you can find all that information on paul zerdin.com and you can have a look at the dates and if he's come to a town near you so do have a look at that and you can follow him on instagram as well and speaking of following ah like every other podcaster in the world i am going to ask you can you hit that subscribe button that always helps and if you want to give it a little five star rating that's always lovely because we drop an episode every Friday.

34:07Paul Zerdin: And I always say, if you're new here, by the way, you are more than welcome. Come and let me know by DMing me on Instagram and saying hi. And you can also just drop a friend or somebody you think that might like this who's maybe into comedy. That's another one. You might be into comedy or entertainment or creativity. You can drop them a message and get them to listen to this. And thank you to all the messages for last week's episode, Mr. Darren brown which was a fantastic episode so that's it from me this week enjoy the rest of the episode with paul this is what's the trick with paul zervi i had to send a script through and i hadn't had time to send it through because i had to get to the millionaire uh rehearsal you had to rehearse the show before you then went out and did it and my american agents phoning me and i'm in the middle of they're going through the the uh millionaire rehearsal and they treat it like it's a it's a show and you have to answer these questions and jonathan is ringing me saying you need to be you need to be uh you need to talk to the agent the the producer send the script i haven't sent the script to i'm in the middle of the it was like a massive just a complete brain fart i just literally couldn't i couldn't cope and i remember it was like well you're you're going to be off the show they're going to take you off the show what do you mean they can take this wait i'll go i'll have to call you back i'm just recording it now and i literally was going hi and just going into you you know, show mode and doing this thing.

35:27And then I had to get myself back on this show. And it was, those things were all going on at the same time. And it was nobody's seeing. Your brains.

35:36Paul Zerdin: Yeah. And you've got this nice. I just want to be funny. All I want to be worried about is, is it funny? You know, and am I, are these shows going to work? And you don't realise all the, you know, the nonsense that goes on behind the scenes. Well, thank you for sharing that. Tell you what, who wants to be a millionaire at America's version? How much money did you have? Where'd you get to on the ladder? I can't remember. I didn't, I don't think I did brilliant. It sounds like you were stressed that day. I was, I was really stressed that day. Tell you what, let's move. Let's talk about venting. I've never told anyone that story, by the way, that whole thing.

36:07I've never, never really, you know, a lot to do to open up about it.

36:10Paul Zerdin: So it's very refreshing. Well, thank you for sharing that. And I think it's, um, sometimes it's good, isn't it? Just to get behind that scene and go, what, you know, what else is going on that we don't see? Cause we just see a guy on stage doing this thing. Um, well, thank you. Uh, let's talk about Ventriloquism then. how do we do ventriloquism how does somebody i'll be asked the most basic question because i've never asked this in my life how do you talk without moving your mouth how do you explain that um well the basics are you have to talk and try and keep your lips as still as possible when i was about um i'd never seen a ventriloquist until i was in my teens and i knew puppets and muppets and um that that world but i didn't know about ventriloquism and Someone, a friend, a very, very dear friend of our family gave me a book on how to become a ventriloquist written by Ray Allen called Gottlaggeer.

37:01And at about the same time, I saw him, Ray Allen, as the first time I'd seen a ventriloquist doing a spot on the Paul Daniels show. Now, I used to go and sit in the audience of the Paul Daniels show. And so I was a massive fan. And then I was, you know, I was heavily into magic and about to leave school and become a professional magician. And so I was still, you know, playing with puppets and stuff. but I was given this book on how to be a ventriloquist and I saw Ray Allen do this spot with Lord Charles and he was absolutely perfect I'd never see I was like my god this is like talk I've heard about this don't know anything about it and he blew me away and I thought I'm going to learn how to do this because this is the best of both worlds I can still be the star of the show I can be puppeteering I can still do my magic I can do the comedy this is everything yeah and I remember just practicing his from his book he had lots of different um exercises that you had to do vocal exercises and it was basically keeping your mouth still and your tongue took take takes over the the lips what the lips yes it creates the sound that the lips make so um you would have to do things like um i'll do it in lord charles's voice um by jove yes good lord yes and and and he's not moving his lips by the way when you're listening to i fancy a dish of fish beans and potatoes that was one of the ones i fancy a dish of fish beans and potatoes so it told you how to create the sound with the with the tongue hitting the back of your top teeth yeah and then you had to then put it into practice and do these exercises and then years later i had to coach a wonderful act called anthony share for a for a part in a film with uh robert lindsey and it was a ventriloquist during the war uh who a jewish ventriloquist who has a dummy of hitler who who who creates this act he gets taken away and um it's a very dark dark comedy it's a brilliant film called gengis cohen i had to teach anthony share how to be a ventriloquist in the space of a few weeks and i gave him some of ray allen's exercises from that book because it was they were so good well let's

38:59Paul Zerdin: talk about you then so coming up with a character so you've got a few characters that you've had in your career though i guess we'll call them puppets yeah what starts for you does a voice start or does a character start and an image start and go oh that's a funny look i will now create a voice where's the starting point of the character well sam was my first sort of big kind of my most well known character from fairly early on because i auditioned for a for a tv show called disney club and disney club said um the producer said oh we really like what you do um we think your your talents would be better suited for a new show and um which is starting taking over the franchise from tvm it was gm tv and the weekends the uh the kids output is going to be produced by disney so i auditioned with a puppet that i had had made look that looked really like ernie from sesame street and he was called gus and he was an american had american voice american character and um i auditioned and they said oh we want we we we love him he's a bit too muppety can you create something else so i created sam and so i literally got a my mom and dad's electric carving knife shaved these blocks of sponge foam that i bought and made this puppet covered it with towel and put eyes on it and it became that was sam basically and i just looked at him and thought oh he needs to have a hello hello i'm sam he was quite posh then so you look at the character i looked at the face and thought what do you sound like yeah it doesn't always happen um that that was sam's character then i had and i thought i need to have an old man don't know why i'd been to a ventriloquist convention in america and i'd seen some people have old man old men puppets and i thought oh that's good so i bought an off the peg old man puppet started playing around and oh yes yes yes yes hello yes and then had him rebuilt so he was completely original and didn't like the look so i had him rebuilt by someone else and then he became albert that i have now which is my old man character whose voice is very similar to lord charles as i've got older and my voice has got deeper he's become he's become a bit more like lord charles and there's a couple of gags that i do as a nod to to ray from from because i got to know ray towards the end of his life and albert is here hey oh god god yeah yeah oh and he's kind of slightly sometimes he's a bit drunk sometimes he's um you know he has sort of memory loss he has selective he's got sort of selective dementia um but it's it's the look of that the look of that puppet i kind of thought oh yeah that voice goes with it but sometimes i'll find a voice and think oh what kind of face would suit that okay so let's talk about writing a show so you're about to go on tour towards the end of the year in in pool zed and shut your mouth tickets are available now thank you how do you you welcome is it that's what he's here for he can leave that now how do you then start writing instructing a show because the other thing as well is ventriloquist is interesting and funny and amazing trying to make that last for a longer period of time you need different gear changes and is there narratives how does that thought process very quickly fall into play how do you do that um well for years when i started touring my own show and i supported lots of people on on tours over the years so i supported people like brian connelly joe pasquale um years before that i supported ronnie corbett on tour norman wisdom wow i was just starting out so so i got to see some incredible artists and work with some really amazing performers and uh some of them had a support act that did the first half they would do a bit at the top of the show then the support act would do the most of the first half and they would do the the whole of the second half yeah so i thought oh that's probably what i should do then what then the pandemic happened and um you know business suddenly you know entertainment suffered everyone struggled you know in all walks of life but entertainment particularly and so when it came back i was due to have my friend supporting me on the tour and the bookings weren't that great and i said to him i don't think i can afford you and he was fine because he was like actually i to be honest i was i wanted to do something else anyway so he was going to do something else and so i did the tour myself and actually the book bookings picked up but I ended up doing both halves of the show yeah so what does it look like then how long is each half and how do you shape it I suppose um so I would do it's about 40 45 minutes in act one and about 45 minutes in act two really um and I used to come out and just do a bit of warm-up and just literally destroy the front row have a have a go at the audience and they seem to always love it when the puppet's having a go at people and so I've always kind of always sort of kept that until the last couple of tours where I've got this character called Alistair, Alistair Rimmer, and he's a TV show.

43:37He went out for a boozy lunch, got drunk, was inappropriate with his co-presenter, and live on air and got taken off and cancelled. That's his backstory. I feel sorry for him because I know that he's talented and he means well, so I'm giving him a chance. So he introduces my show, and he's radio-controlled. So he just appears on his own in a special, just a little spotlight with him in a director's seat, and he talks about his career, and he's slightly bitter it sort of seeps out even though he's there just to introduce me yeah so he's a bit self-indulgent so he does a bit of warm-up then he introduces me and then I come out and then I don't have to do a warm-up because he's done it for me even though it's me and we

44:10Paul Zerdin: thought where you're at the moment with this this is happening kind of fourth quarter are you is it written are you writing it you work with writers how do you get a show together um well I've I started writing the show on the tour last year I had already worked some of that material and then i kind of knew the the basic structure and i've always had the same kind of structure i look at it like a chest of drawers so i just take the draw the draw out and replace it with new jokes and new material routine quickly sum up that structure it would be um kind of alistair at the top walk quick warm-up then it's me sam big chunk big big chunk of of the first half um my fox character and then the baby and the baby's always good at closing uh at one i don't know why just seems to work really well so it's all different jokes all different material different routines but that's the set the sort of structure then act two i'll open again with sam and we'll do something completely different some sort of music thing yeah last year did a sort of lip sync routine i do a load of stuff i've got a talking ice cream as well which i talk about this is a dream sequence which i go into and and then i get my bodyguard roger out and he does about 10 minutes and talks about his career in the military.

45:24Paul Zerdin: He then talks about, this year he's talking about his role in the King's Narcotics Operations Bureau. He's a KNOB. And he talks about on the lookout for drugs. And I won't give away too much, but he gets into trouble. Albert has always, the last few tours I started to do magic. So the magic has crept back in, in different ways. So a couple of years ago, So I had a zigzag lady box built for Albert and Albert put himself in it. He was radio controlled. So he was telling me what to do and I was sawing him in the ass. So to sum up then, you basically have this structure then, right? Of the, like you say, these chest of drawers where you're like, right, okay.

46:05Paul Zerdin: So I know that that's going to happen. I need a musical number. I need a magic trick for him. I'm going to need this, that, that. And then all you now do is just fill in the gaps, I suppose. I made that sound very easy. Yeah, yeah. I'll make it sound easy. But that is, that's kind of the templates. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. And then working stuff in. are you coming up with an idea, taking it to a comedy club or a night and just trying that bit and get that simple? I'll try it wherever I am. Summing things up a bit because we are going to start wrapping things up. But I suppose what I want to ask you is, and be honest here and don't be modest.

46:32Paul Zerdin: You've had an amazing career and you've been on all sorts of stages, all sorts of platforms, TV, everything, probably everything you can imagine. Why do you think you've been successful over 99 % of the ventriloquists or i don't know lovely sorry that's such a dull answer isn't it i really don't know i i love what i do and i love you know kind of trying to trying to reinvent it and um and i've i've i've changed and having to when you tour all the time you have to keep on you know creating new material and evolving um i don't know i think people people need a laugh comedy is so important and when i did magic it was always comedy magic yeah even if it was doing an illusion like levitating my sister at my school talent talent competition doing the harbin chair suspension it was still funny there were funny bits and so comedy is really important well let's talk about that for a second so i've seen you at a magic convention i know you play late night comedy shows you can do family cruise ships you can your act and this is a huge compliment and it's something i would love to be able to do you can work anywhere like you almost put you on a stage and it works with taxi rank midday tagus strip yeah you name it i'll do it a variety show and any crowd and it seems like you can which is amazing it's like bulletproof how do you do that do you think is it comedy is it that the comedy is universal what's the thing that makes it work everywhere i honestly i honestly don't i honestly don't know i think if you love what you do and you've you know and you believe in what you do that sounds a bit wanky but you know um i think people will it'll come over and people i don't know people just people want to have a laugh i mean i remember doing gigs for the troops in afghanistan and iraq and you're literally in the desert and you're taking the piss out of you know some sergeant major or or you know some high-ranking officer um making them into a dummy or what i don't i don't know what it is i i i grew up loving comedy robin williams you know muppet show sesame street comedy puppets i don't know it's just a world that i love and it is like i've lived in a land of make-believe you know since i was a kid and I grew up but didn't really.

48:58And I think people like that sort of escapism.

49:01Paul Zerdin: Before we move into my Fast Five, yeah. You've done a lot. Is there anything left on your bucket list?

49:09I just want to do good. No, I just want to do more. I want to do more better. I want to do more and bigger gigs and just keep doing it. I did, I was about to pilot a show in America during that whole crazy time. Uh, and so that's still something that I, I would love to do. Um, you know, um, I love doing, I love it. I love going onto a TV set. Yes. Studio. There's something really exciting, especially when it's, you know, it's a shiny floor show. There's something that really, that gives me a buzz. So when I did do AGT and, uh, you know, those sorts of shows that I, I love it. I grew up watching those shows and so when you're then on those shows you really you're in the you're in

49:54Paul Zerdin: the telling you'll feel like you're doing you know you're you're like wow it's just there's something there's a buzz there's an excitement in the world and it's really exciting so if I go on this morning or I go on you know some whatever show it is to talk about the tour or whatever um I get a real buzz from that so I hope I can continue to do that and um and people will come and you know pay to come and see my live tours because um because you know it's such a it's such a wonderful thing to be able to do i and i know that that does sound a bit wanky but it but i but i love i love it and i know that i'm really lucky yeah well you say you're lucky you're also you know you're very you're extremely talented and you worked really hard and you don't stop right you're welcome uh are you ready for my fast five yeah go for it all right fast five uh first of Question number one My Highlander question Are you familiar with the film Highlander?

50:45Paul Zerdin: Yeah but I haven't seen it for a long time Nobody else has either So you'll find Everyone says the same Right question In that film Immortals kill other immortals They chop their heads off In doing so They steal the expertise And the knowledge from that person Yeah If you could steal anybody's expertise On skills Dead or alive Who would it be? David Asenborough His knowledge of the natural world Really? Is mind blowing Do you know who I thought I thought you'd say someone like David Copperfield or something. I love David Copperfield. And I've kind of got to know David Copperfield a little bit over the last few years.

51:18Yeah. And had a tour of his museum, which is, I don't know if you've. I've not been. It is one of the most incredible experiences ever. My wife Emma came with me and she said, I have never seen you be like a little boy in a magic shop. Yeah. And it was how I felt when I first went to Davenport as a kid. Yeah. It was incredible. But I love the natural world. And because I travel and have traveled so much and get to go to some incredible places, especially when you're doing like troops gigs in the Iraqi desert and places that you wouldn't end up going. I just find anything that Attenborough does find fascinating.

51:53And I have a David Attenborough puppet as well that I use on social media. He's called Little David and he goes around doing his, um, his little travel, travel logs, uh, talking about, you know, flora or whatever. well he's he's um just set up for this in the goby desert we find we have the hermit craft it's a small whatever anyway you get the gist of it so it's like a caricature of david i can't do that voice as a ventriloquist though i have no so he appears without me so i am doing you know traditional puppeteering i'm underneath or beside the camera and he's he's in shot and i'm not and

52:34Paul Zerdin: and he pops up and does these comedy travel logs uh time capsule if you can only keep one routine one bit one project you've ever done into a time capsule and the rest of your work is incinerated and gone forever paul what you keeping um there's a routine that i wrote with my friend martin beaumont and um i did it for a long time i did it on television i did it on a raw variety show i did it on the stand-up show and I did it I kind of did it I love doing it so much I did it too much and it was when I have an argument with my puppet character Sam and I say I don't need you I can be funny without a puppet uh I can do my jokes and then I put him away and I'm trying to deliver my stand-up and these jokes and the puppet is is heckling me and I say right okay I can do this right my mother and all you can't say that why not sexist all right okay well my grandmother ageist yeah uh david copperfield illusionist you everything was in this yeah and it was it was this um you know uh pc type routine yeah which i still do now occasionally but i can change it up and just slot in different different people you know so david attenborough conservationist you know there's and it's such a lovely bit nice to do i really love it and i was doing it for an american crowd a version of it the other week on on the uh on the on the cruise ship and they and they loved it and we wrote that routine about 25 years ago and that is probably one of my favorite routines ever lovely right it's in it the rest is gone culture vulture what what have you seen read experience lately that you loved that you want to share about i've got a bit of a reputation um with amongst my friends for not being able to sit in sit through a complete show so if i go and see a musical uh quite often i'll leave an interval if i just get really i get bored i don't know if that's got a really short span of attention but i saw recently i saw a production of a brand new production i believe called the karate kid it's a musical based on the film it was called the karate yeah i saw at wimbledon theater a few weeks ago and it was absolutely brilliant was it yeah the music the choreography the cast they were amazing and i i didn't know really what to expect because i don't really remember seeing a film or films uh as a kid You wouldn't imagine, you know, I mean, things like Back to the Future, you've got the spectacle of it.

54:51Paul Zerdin: But yeah, there's not that much of a spectacle in Karate Kid. But okay, that's now on my radar. I absolutely loved it. Really interesting what you said about your attention span. And I think, you know, I think with your act, it's quick. Your act is quick. There's not much fat in it. And I'm kind of similar. I have a bad attention span. But I think as performers, that makes us better because it's like just get on with the thing, especially as a magician. Get on with it as quickly as we can. Let's get to the point here. Yes. So I think that not having a great attention span has probably helped you in your own work.

55:21Paul Zerdin: I would imagine. That's a good point. Well, it's on you.

55:26Paul Zerdin: Okay, my magic wand. I'm going to give you my magic wand. You can make anything vanish from the world of theater, ventriloquism, entertainment, whatever you like to make it a better place. The self-tape. Go on. So when you go for a casting, whether it's for commercial or a part in something, whatever it is doing a self tape at home i can't bear them yeah i much prefer the days when you would go into a studio and you would do an audition yeah there's something about that connection with the casting director with the producer the director whatever yeah that you don't get when you're just in your room at home and you're trying to get the lighting right and you're trying to get the backdrop right that whole process is torturous and i hate it but also i can imagine you like they're going to give you probably their 100 attention when you're in the room when they were looking at you on a screen have they have you got their full energy and attention oh yeah so i know it's uh efficient it's it's a way of doing things and you know the remote thing like zooms i can't bear doing zooms but you have to do them occasionally but i get so bored yeah and so i try not to do them if i can help it and the self-tape is is the thing that i really well the self-tape is gone it's vanished final question the entire show paul zernan what is the trick to having a hugely global successful career long career as a ventriloquist bloody hell i think just be funny you can be funny get up there and be funny and um don't piss about get out there and just entertain them um and and try and keep the material fresh thank you very much there we go cheers so there you go that was another episode of what's the trick hope you enjoyed that one again a completely different conversation and i suppose looking back on that one what i take from it is when he entered america's got talent he really knew his craft he knew his act inside out back to front so he could deal with any of the occasions they threw at him and i always think that it's so simple isn't it that if you want to be one of those big i suppose overnight successes in America.

57:35Paul Zerdin: It's that 20 years of work he's got behind those. He wasn't trying anything new. He was going in with all the stuff he tried and tested. It's really simple, but it just shows that it works. Anyway, you can go and find him on social media. And as always, drop me a message. Let me know what you think of this episode. If you haven't listened to Darren yet, go and listen to Darren Brown's episode next week. We'll be back with another episode next Friday of What's the Trick? Enjoy the rest of your week. Bye-bye.

58:03Thank you.