David Blaine
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Not available in all states. So there's probably almost no other stunt that you're afraid of. Oh, no, there's one that I'm highly intimidated by. That'll be my final thing. Well, let's rephrase that. Let's rephrase that. Welcome back to Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes.

Today, we're with a close friend of Woody's, the world-renowned magician, David Blaine. If you've seen David's stuff, I don't need to convince you that he's one of our greatest living entertainers. For decades, he's performed some of the most unbelievable feats known to man. From his famous street magic to death-defying stunts like catching a bullet in his mouth or standing in a block of ice for days in Times Square.

Still, he finds new ways to amaze us. I loved meeting David through Woody. I went into this intimidated by his powers, but he just bowled me over with his humility and his warmth. Just see for yourself. The amazing David Blaine. Well, thank you for having me, Ted and Woody.

My jaw's dropping because we just watched you do a lot of your stuff and the entire studio's in awe. You said you saw somebody in a train station or a subway or something when you were four doing magic? Yeah, well, I grew up in Brooklyn with a single mother, and she was always trying to take me to things like museums, libraries, Coney Island. And so often I would see street performers, like guys doing rope tricks or the sword swallowers in Coney Island.

And I think just my fascination began early on. And then I think just having a deck of cards at the age of four or five and holding it every day

And one day a librarian walked me through a very simple, self-working mathematical trick and I performed it to my mother and she went, to this day, my favorite reaction of all time. Every time I did a trick to my mom, it was like, so I became kind of in love with the concept of getting people to react and magic was the best way. And so slowly I tried to understand how to make it stronger and stronger. And what I realized was like,

Less is more. The less there is of me, the more there is of the person that I'm doing magic to. I'm jumping a little bit because I also know that later on you went to the neighborhood playhouse. Yeah. Which is in Sandy Meisner technique. Yes. Which is a little bit of what you just said. Don't do anything until someone else makes you do it.

It's about the other person. That's right. Or living truthfully in a given imaginary circumstance, which was like pasted on the wall. And my teacher, Richard Pinter, who was amazing, had me stand up on stage because there was no means for a close-up magician to make a living. So I was like, okay, well, Orson Welles had this quote, a magician is an actor playing the part of the magician. So let me see how far I could push it. And I was doing a trick on stage and I was reading the patter of the trick.

And the patter of the trick is ridiculous. It's like very wordy and it was like really... And the teacher, Richard, said, really read that. And I kind of stopped because I was alone on stage and I...

I actually read the script and it was so silly that I started laughing hysterically. And that's something me and Woody do all the time is we laugh into tears. So I was laughing and the more I would laugh, the more I'd try to read it, the harder I would laugh. And I had snot coming out of my nose, tears out of my eyes. And when I finally was done, Richard said, look at everybody.

and everybody was on the floor kicking their legs, laughing hysterically. And that's when I understood that you don't need the patter and less is more and trying to be honest, which is ironic, in magic makes it that much more effective.

So it was that, that was like a pivotal moment for, but I never even knew that you went to the, the, yeah, that playhouse. And yeah. So do you, but you were thinking to become an actor possibly? Well, there was no means for magic. So I was like, what do I do? Entertainment is my thing. So I, I, yeah, it, but I,

I got lucky because I was invited at that point to go on to Jon Stewart's first pilot of his first show. And I did a magic trick. And that was kind of the beginning. So it kind of paved the way for what I actually did my whole life. I didn't know that. That's what started it. Yeah. But I would say that. And what was the trick?

And on Jon Stewart, I hammered it. It's terrible, by the way, because it was my first thing. My second thing was with Conan, by the way, my second public appearance. Yeah, and that was where it worked. But I tried to force a card. First of all, I just wanted to do the card tricks, but the producers of Jon's show said, no, no, you have to do something bigger. So I was like, what could I do?

So I was like, okay, I'll come up with something bigger. And I force a card. They take the card. John took, I think, the seven hearts or seven of diamonds. And then I hammer a nail into my nose, which I just learned. And then when I pull it out, it starts bleeding. And then it's a seven of diamonds or hearts or whatever on my shirt. So it was terrible, but it was the beginning of kind of mixing real things with magic tricks. And I got lucky because...

After that, you know, I was doing this illusion trick that I tried to do to you 30 years ago, the levitation. And I...

So when I put that on TV, years after I did it to you, but when I put it on TV, YouTube just started exposing all the secrets or Google. So it was immediately revealed everywhere about how the levitation trick works. And it was like an on the fly thing that I used to do. And it kind of led me towards the realization that in order to do things that are

more interesting when revealed, the behind the scenes of it has to be much more compelling. So the method of something has to be more interesting than what they're seeing almost based on information becoming so available to everybody. And when I did the levitation too, I used to floor everybody with it unless they knew magic. And I did it to Woody. He's like, I know what you did. That was the beginning of our friendship. Yeah.

That's right. What does Google do to you when you, you know, hold your breath or freeze yourself? No, but that's when I started. It's like, suck on that, Google. No, but still, it was funny because being a magician, all of the, you know, Google, YouTube, all the...

were revealing, saying, oh, I had secret tubes, I had this. So I was basically pushing my body to the breaking point. But because I'm a magician, nobody believed any of it. They all thought it was a trick and it started to go away. But then reflecting back, I realized that that was a lucky thing because it

If it was just what it seemed, if they were like, oh, he's holding his breath, it's not as interesting as what's the secret technique to what he's doing. So it's almost like that kind of question mark made it more entertaining. Did you play sports? Because you are incredibly athletic, obviously. No, I wasn't a good athlete, but I was good at endurance. So I did play sports. I moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey. And when I was 10, I started playing baseball.

and I wasn't good at the actual sport. My feet turned in, I had asthma and all that stuff. But what I started to realize is that I could endure more than everybody. So even in baseball, we'd have to run, and it would be long distance run around the field when anybody would do something wrong. And that was easy for me. So I was able to kind of early on just push the extreme. And then I would wear like a t-shirt all winter when it was really cold. And I would just

I kind of developed a resistance and an ability to endure things. Purposely? Not with a plan, but yeah, purposely. You know what it was? To toughen myself up. To be good at something. And what about the lack of sleep thing? When did you start experiencing that? No, no, I'm terrible at that. I've been experimenting with that, but I'm terrible at it. You know, you've seen me. I fall asleep in the middle of meetings. As soon as I'm near bed, I'm out. Yeah.

But I mean, you, you, but you have done like, yeah, I mean, I've done like five days when you stood on top of the thing for 70 something hours. Yeah. Describe that. You said you were having hallucinations. What was that called again? The, uh, so we got it here. Sleep deprivation. No, but the name of the vertigo. Yeah. When I stood on the pillar and the buildings behind me started to look like animal heads and everything. Yeah. That was crazy. But,

But basically, I think the hallucinations kick in from sleep deprivation, no food, dehydration as well. And then the hallucinations come quickly because your brain is trying to get you out of that situation. So it tries to fool you. And yeah, you came and helped me when I was in electricity, when I started to hallucinate and you talked me through it a little bit. And that's when you need really...

close people that can kind of guide you or tell you it's okay. And then I want to do no water. And you were like, you need to take water. And you were right.

Because once it starts to go bad, it just gets worse and worse. Describe that moment between the two of you. I don't quite understand. Well, you know, he does things that, you know, it's like it's a mixed bag having him as a good buddy. Because he does things that I really seriously worry like a mother about.

You know, I'm like, I can't believe you're doing this, dude. Don't do it. You know, but that one scared me because you're up there with all that. I was standing with the 75.

pound chain mail suit and um i was standing within seven tesla coils that were zapping me the whole time and what happened was my the first thing is your your feet start to expand so it's edema so they start to swell and it ripped through the chain mail and then nobody could come up there and i started to get shocked through the bottom of my you know openings where where my ankles were and then um

the catheter, you know, I usually have a trucker's tube, which I use, but that was a whole nightmare situation because of the O3 that was being released by all the Tesla coils. They were pumping air up so I wouldn't breathe the O3 because it's a silent death you don't even know. So every time I'd go to the bathroom, the air would do this. So I was like, okay, I'm done drinking water. I'm not going to drink anymore. But then the hallucinations became awful. And that's when

Woody was there and he was talking me through it. And he's like, you're drinking water. And so they lowered the coils enough and my doctor came up and they kind of sealed the legs, which was good. So now I was semi-okay.

But then I was drinking electrolyte water through a tube. And when I spit it out, it hit a coil and the coil went right inside. And I think it bruised my heart wall. And I think it did some pretty good damage to me, actually. Interesting.

And your best friend here is laughing. Because he's getting damaged every direction all the time. That's true. I just dislocated my shoulder again. But that's got to be a pretty serious one, you know, getting a million volts into your intestines. Yeah, that was a big one. That was a crazy one. Obviously, because you're not an idiot, you have doctors, scientists, people going. Yes.

But they're always so over the top of their caution that that almost becomes the danger. So there's a balance, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's one part of it that's like, you need to explore very diligently, very carefully with the best team, which I always do. So I never just,

jump into something. First, I have to see proof of concept on some level. And then I have to see somebody do it successfully, even if it's not as far. And they say, oh, can I endure the same thing? And then slowly I test it and have a team of experts around me. I never just do it alone in a way that like I can suddenly kill myself. So, and that's something that's important to me. And obviously I have a daughter. I don't want anything bad to happen.

And I don't want kids to ever copy and just think, oh, he just does these things. So I really do have, and luckily when I do any of these things, I have the most incredible team surrounding me. Right. I saw also you trained with the Navy SEALs. So was that...

Because they're all about endurance and not letting their mind tell them, oh, no, it's too cold. I'm too tired. That's right. Yeah. And that's great. All of those things where you push yourself, just where you build up the ability to just keep pushing yourself a little bit further and a little bit further, all add up when you're doing a breath hold or anything. Right.

And were you David Blaine then? So they said yes. Or did, how did that come? Cause not everyone can go train with Navy SEALs. No, but I think they, once they saw that, that I can hold my breath, then it became, you know, they, they were happy to help. I think cause I was pushing, I was doing seven plus minutes, just straight breath holding before I even started with them. So,

I was doing good. Yeah. You know, I was with them one time and I like I I did a thing. We were at a pool. I forget whose house it was. And you probably don't remember this. But anyway, like I went like down and back and like maybe back again. Like it was quite a feat.

Yes, I believe. You know, and everybody's like, yeah, yeah. And he's like, listen, I bet you I could do, you know, you did three links. I say I could do five. Five?

And then I'm looking at him like, this fucking guy. I am not better than this guy. He says, I bet I can do six. And I'm like, Jesus, is he out of his mind? Seven. He says, I could do eight. I remember that. And I'm like... I remember that. No, I'm not doing the bet. I'm not doing the bet. But of course, you know, at that time, I didn't even know that you could do the breath hold. You'd never brought it up or shown it or anything. You must be...

Woody's most frustrating friend because you are competitive, Woody. Well, he wanted to try to. Yeah, we compete. What do you owe me? $200,000 from the back? Oh, you also made like 600. So, so when I, one time I was with Woody and he said, I got to do this jump off of this cliff. And he says, I got to go do this jump.

So I'm like, okay, great. So I was training for Vertigo at the time. So I was jumping into cardboard boxes repetitively. And I watched him do, I think, a two and a half, right? Or it was a brain. I think it was a brain. No, it was one and a half with a full twist. Right. One and a half with a full twist. And he landed straight on his face. If I'd had another foot.

You would have been. I'd been good. Yeah, that's probably true. But he landed right on his face. Both eyes bulged out. Blood was coming out of his nose. It looked like...

I mean, it was so disturbing. So I'm like, I ran and got ice and I'm putting ice on him. And everybody comes like, we're going to call a doctor. He's like, I'm not doing a doctor. I'm going to fix this myself, right? No, no. By the way, sorry. One eye was bulged out. The other was just black and blue. So what he did is he's trying to fix out. He blows...

through his nose and the other eye just bulges out so now both eyes are like this and he can't see he's like looking through this little slit and uh and i'm sitting with him because i'm just like disturbed but also taking care trying to take care of him and i just gotten whiplash from a jump so i was sitting there and um and he says this to me looks up he can't see he's like

Because I gotta fucking do it again.

And he can't see. He has no eyes. And he climbs back up to the top and does the fucking flip and lands it perfectly. And he's like, if I didn't do it, I'd be afraid of it. So I had to do it. And then he was fine. Then we iced and, you know, his eyes were sealed shut probably for a while. But that's when I realized that, no, he's insane. I would wait. I would do it again. But like three months later. Yeah.

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You were in ice for 63 hours. Yeah. That 2000 special, Frozen in Time. Now, what inspired you to do that? This is pre, like, nobody had ever heard of, you know, Wim Hof. Well, no, I was buried alive before that, so I was in a coffin for a week. Oh, right. That's right. But that was really easy to do. And then I went on a...

a vacation kind of like a work thing. And I remember I saw a bug in a piece of amber. And I think that's when I was like, oh, that looks beautiful. What if I'm in ice? And that was the beginning of it. But I also spent

winters walking with just a t-shirt and I was really good at and I would always get into really cold ice baths and things like that so I was really good at that and I really liked it because I could push it I was so can I ask without taking away the magic the combination real and magic that

What allows the human body to be able to do that? No, no. The ice wasn't pressed against me. It was carved out a little bit. It was basically like an igloo. So it was really standing up the whole time with the cold air just radiating against my skin. But it happened to be a warm November. So it was the end of November. It was supposed to be cold. And because it was so warm, it kept dripping on me.

And it was like torture because the ice kept dripping. But at the same time, the air that was blowing through was 68 degrees or so. So it made it semi-bearable. And then the turning point happened at about hour 55 and just lights switched off and I was tripping out of my mind. And it became the most horrific endeavor to this day, basically. More difficult than 44 days with just water.

And which when I did that, he also did the same fast. He had vegetable juice and things like that, but he did it with me. So I did 44 days and I think you did exactly 44 or more.

Yeah, well, not like you. I didn't do 44 days water. Remember, I was trying to get you. I was saying, well, why don't you just take a little bit of, you know, like something. Yeah, like like a blue green algae or something to just kind of sustain, you know.

You would not do that. I'm not taking any other. That was just for the purity of it. But luckily, I think the fact that I just had pure H2O, nothing, no minerals, nothing, my body went into starvation mode. And I think that's probably what allowed me to recover, I think, fully for the most part. So I feel like if I would have cheated, and my doctor, who was one of the top starvation experts in London, said,

Um, he thought I was cheating the whole time, even though they were collecting my urine and doing all that stuff. And when I came out and went to the hospital, he put me on the IV and, and, uh, and my phosphate levels went,

went crazy like that and um i almost went into shock and could have died then then he was like oh this is all real and so they started to collect real data blood samples everything and then he published the paper on the refeeding syndrome which is after long starvation um when when

When people are refed, that's the part where they can suddenly go into shock and die. You can die during the fast as well, but I'm saying the refeeding part is the most delicate part, I think. Wow. I never thought. But is 44 days like a record on water?

I just like the number four, four. And no, there's a lot. No, Bobby Sands, lots of hunger strikers and people had done. Yeah, but he went 66 days, I believe, until he died. But but I used a lot of their. Yeah.

I mean, you get the record, but there's a downside. I also had a physiologist who used to work at NASA and they searched real records and he found documented examples of people surviving 43 days to full recovery on just water. So I was thinking if I bulk up, which I did, which messed me up to this day, and then come in and have serialized

serious fat reserves, then that should help significantly. And if I isolated my movements and I did it publicly, I've always been obsessed with fasting because every stunt was a fast. The Buried Alive was a seven-day fast, but I had to fast before that for a week so I wouldn't go to the bathroom. And I started to love fasting like you do. And I started to realize that the reason monks and gurus and everybody does fast is not to harm themselves. I don't

recommend it for anybody, but they do it because it does bring a different state of mind that's incredible. It changes your outlook. And it cleanses the body. Exactly. That's right. Me and Joe are on a cleanse now, day 10 juice. Really? Yeah, juice and fruit.

Adding the fruit really helps. I get to do that, obviously. It's great. I never did that before. I've always been too extreme. But now I add the fruit and you just juice it in your mouth. Back in whatever the early 1900s, they called it fletcherizing.

But you just juice it in your mouth, so it becomes just completely liquid. Oh, so you mean you're still chewing it? Yeah, I'm chewing fruit. Yeah, that's great, because then your saliva, the enzymes help break it down more. That's great. That's great. But it works just as effectively. So anyone out there who's thinking of doing a juice fast, think about adding the fruit. And chewing it well. Yeah, you got to really... And also, it's multiple reasons why it's good, because the fruit...

you know, actually goes through your body and helps bring debris out. So it's helping with the cleanse itself. It's also getting you used to the concept of every time I want, this is a concept I want you to imbibe. Every time that I need a snack, let it be fruit.

That's good. And so anyway, that kind of changes the mindset. Yeah, that's great. I should be asking both of you this, but I'm asking you, David, do you think that you will know when, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this, this extreme anymore? Or are you an addict? So it's funny you ask that.

I always looked at my cutoff point is I'm very superstitious and

which is part of the 44 days. The 44 was, from a ridiculous point of view, it was my birthday's 4-4. So I've always been obsessed with 4-4, which is eight. But anyway, so Harry Houdini, who's always been my favorite and my big inspiration for so many things, he died when he was 52 and he kept pushing his body and he stayed very fit. He was just always, he was rock solid.

And he had done the water tank, collapsed on stage because he didn't want to disappoint the audience, even though he had a severe stomach pains and then was rushed to the hospital and died. So I always thought 52 should be, that should be kind of the mark of you don't want to keep pushing to the point that you break. So I was thinking of a few more years of pushing and then I'm going to shift to 52.

probably what people like to see me do more, which is just magic and bringing it to hospitals and kids in hospitals and all that stuff, which I love doing. And you get the best reactions and you feel the best after. But I love the push. So I love pushing myself, but I don't want to push myself to the point where you...

actually break. What's the, what's the stunt you were, you wanted to do, but you just haven't done, or you, you just thought it was too extreme. Well, that, that one that, that I was unable to do was sleep deprivation when I could, Oh, I was saying, sorry. I was saying that the idea of fasting is, was eat that started with buried alive. And I, and I, and it changed my brain in such an incredible way. And then I did the ice, which was more fasting. And then every stunt,

had fasting secretly as part of it. And I was like, oh, I'm going to do something just about fasting. But the other thing that the stunts had was sleep deprivation.

extreme sleep deprivation because if you fell asleep in the ice and your face goes against the ice, your face would freeze and you'd get frostbite. It'd be really bad. And then when you peel it off, it's like... Yeah, then it's no good. Half your face peels off. But so sleep deprivation I started to play with. But that one is... That's a tough one. That's a tough one. And that's why they do that when they torture people, try to get secrets out of them. That's right. And they don't recover.

The ones that were tortured in North Korea, the Americans that came back, it was a sleep deprivation that they could because when when the brain is slipped, some and that's the that's the scariest thing to me. And and yeah, like you said, it's it's it is the most effective form of torture, I think.

So I wanted to do sleep deprivation. I was obsessed with it. And the doctor who's the head of Stanford, who's like the top expert, his name ironically is Dr. Dement. And the guy who tried to do it that was a radio DJ, his name was Peter Tripp. And at the end of a week of sleep deprivation, his brain didn't fully recover effectively.

Yeah. I don't think there's any upside to that particular stunt because, you know, first of all, people are like, oh, well, that's pretty cool. Oh, he's gone seven days. Really cool. And then you never come back. Then you're gone. You're like...

But what I did like about it was there was a guy named Randy Gardner who Dr. Dement documented, I think in the late 60s or mid 60s. And I don't think anybody's broken it since, but it was about 11 plus days of sleep deprivation. And then when you think about 11 point, I forget what the exact numbers, but...

about 11 and a half days, I believe is a million seconds. So I got obsessed with the idea of a million seconds without sleeping because that's just like a cool. And then when I spoke to Dr. Domingue said, yeah, but we're going to check for micro sleeps. And I was like, okay, there's no way I'm going to do it because that's a micro sleep and you fail. So it's really hard to describe. I don't know what you mean by micro sleep. Like as soon as you do that, your brain,

goes out, that's a microsleep. As soon as you... If your eye's just one second... Yeah, if your brain's not active, I guess. So... And plus, it's not worth the repercussions. So that's the one that I... The big one that I was...

into that I kept trying and just couldn't get there. And so there's probably almost no other stunt that you're afraid of. Oh, no, there's one that I'm highly intimidated by, but I'm working diligently on putting it together. It'll be my final thing, secretive. Well, let's rephrase that. Let's rephrase that. There's one that's a culmination of everything that I've ever done that I'm obsessed with, but it's a pretty over-the-top ambitious idea. So I'm trying to put it together and it will be my last one.

Before you move on to card tricks. That's right. Not my last one. I'm going to die. My last one before I do the... We blame an irony. Yeah, in his podcast, he said it. I wanted to ask you about, you know, like of all the things that you've pulled off that most people thought impossible, the one thing I thought might be impossible for you to pull off

fatherhood. I knew this was coming. I knew he was going to go there. And you are the best father of all time, dude. You're such a great dad. I just love how you are with Des. It makes me so freaking happy to see you guys together. I'm very lucky. She's my best friend in the world. And yeah, it's the greatest gift in life. And

It's funny because when everybody shows you their kid pictures, until you have a kid, you don't understand. But when you have a kid, you're like, look! Like every screensaver on your phone, everything, that's it. My greatest achievement is anything that she does. You want to see magic? Look! Well, I mean, just watching, because earlier we watched a performance of Dessa that she did with her father in Vegas.

And to see his pride over it at Raft afterward and hugging her, I mean, I started bawling. It's so beautiful. First off, just astounding. Her talent and how beautiful and, you know, out of the blue, you know, during COVID, she learned how to do this. But by having a daughter, I learned something that I'd never realized, which is the female brain versus the male brain. So,

But overall, there's no way that I could ever focus like she does. She'll do four hours of training, but no breaks. If I'm watching, I have to beg her to take a sip of water. If somebody walks in, it doesn't matter. She's just like this. And that's something that I think I could never understand.

ever, ever. If my phone, but I'm like, wait a second, I'll be ready. You know, if somebody walks in, that's like a 10 minute. But, but, but, but when she trains and she just started training during COVID, it for her, it's just all in no distractions. And it's amazing to see. So when she,

that she would like to do something. Yeah, it's a highlight. It was the highlight of my career, period. And you know the audience. And it's her. But there's nothing that I was more proud of ever. When it's me, I'm like, oh, why did I do that? That sucked. That was terrible. But with her, I'm like, ah! What? Is there anything that you go, oh, shoot, I need to handle this in my life. I just...

You know, to me, you're like Superman. I'm listening to all these things and the self-control. No, no, that's specific to like that. That's the thing is people say, oh, you could do this. No, I'm good if like I have a specific thing and there's a window to it. So if like, oh, I'm going to go 44 days with just water. Then I understand the beginning and the end and then it becomes numbers. And I can relate to that. Or if it's I'm going to hold my breath for the record is this number.

I'm gonna hold it for this length, then it's numbers. And it's a numbers game. And I break it down, I first do half,

And then so if I hold my breath, let's say I was going for my actual record was 20 minutes and two seconds. But so first I go for like, OK, let me get to 10 minutes. Then when I get to 10 minutes, I'm like, OK, this is a starting point. And then I start from there and then I start counting seconds and breaking it all down. So I think it's a slow training and long process, but eventually it becomes the numbers.

But you really have to, because when I've done breath holds, which I started doing, you know, those Wim Hof things in the morning, you know, obviously much shorter breath holds. But for me, long, you know, like a minute and a half, two minutes is a long breath hold for most people. I saw you do four minutes or 345 or something. I think, yeah, around three. No, in Hawaii. Yeah.

Anyway, I don't know. But the point is, like, you know, you have this thing. In fact, I had it in Hawaii. I got I was out surfing with Matthew's son, who's a great surfer, by the way, Livingston and and Levi rather. And and and I got.

I shouldn't have even been out there. There were big waves onshore. We were out at a reef and it was huge. Anyway, I got eaten by the wave and I'm down what felt like forever. And so when I'm down there, I'm just like,

I needed a breath because the way it happened is I was trying to get over the lip of the wave because it's kind of a rogue wave and didn't make it. The guy next to me just got over. I just didn't make it. And I'm just like, you know, you're like, and then suddenly no breath.

Like your breath was coming every millisecond, another breath, and now suddenly no breath. And I start fighting, like I need to get that next breath. So now I'm fighting, burning more, which is worse. You need to let go. But anyway, the point is that when you're doing these breath holds,

You're there's something there's shit going on in your brain that is just demanding another breath. Right. Yeah. And you have to be able to still your mind. That's right. And so but what is the technique of just saying, oh, it's just pure bliss? You know, how do you do that?

Well, I mean, that starts, I think, with training. So it's a slow process. So it's not like you can just hold your breath all of a sudden. You have to understand what's going on. So you have to understand that the CO2 buildup is the reason that you need to breathe. It's the pain that it's trying to trigger you and give you the signal that you need oxygen. But really, the O2 is there, and it'll

it'll rush towards your vital organs and protect you from much longer than you think. So once you learn that it's a CO2 buildup that's making you feel like you urgently need to breathe, then you can learn how to build up a resistance to CO2, which is, I mean, that's the main first step. Your brain resistant? Yeah.

You learn how to... Yeah, CO2 resistant. Your body can endure it much more efficiently. Like when you go into an ice bath, the first time you go in, you can sit for a minute. The next time you can push it and go to two minutes and you can go three minutes. And they used to say, bite the bullet, right? Because when they would do that, you have your arm blown off from a cannon and they had to use a hot rod to...

Yeah, they would give you a bite the butt or breathe. So you can't breathe when you're holding your breath, but it's the same principle. It's like acceptance and then focus on what you're doing. And then, you know, know that you have the ability to push much longer than you think.

The opposite is panic. So if you panic suddenly, it makes it much more difficult and you'll black out quicker. And is there a physiological thing that happens with panic, like more CO2? Yeah, everything. You're not efficient. The most efficient way is to just be calm and calm.

and wait, if you're connected to something, if you're trapped on a coral or something, you have to release yourself, then that's different. You do need to panic and get out of the situation. But if you're just under, you can just wait. And if you wait, it'll be much more efficient. When I was a kid learning how to hold my breath, I was like five years old at the YMCA. And like I said, I was born with my feet turned in, so I couldn't swim efficiently. And I would lose all the time. But what I started to do is just not breathe.

And then the older kids would come to watch and I would just hold the ladder and stand or water. And then what I realized is I could hold my breath much longer because they would have to go up and down to get their breasts, but that's not efficient. Going back down is not as good as just holding and being patient and just waiting. So I learned young how to just hold, wait, and be patient. And I think that related to everything that I did. So I think early on, I kind of learned that lesson. And then it's even friends that I grew up with,

They all remember that if we were wrestling and I was under a mattress, I would just stay there. If I was covered and I couldn't breathe, I would just relax and wait. Then I'd pull it off, and they would all be claustrophobic. But I understood from just early on breath-holding, you just wait, you be patient, and things will change. But at this time, when you were a kid doing those kind of things, did that bring ridicule from the other kids? No, no, no. That made the older kids come watch and think that was...

really good that they couldn't beat me. Yeah. Cause I couldn't swim. I wasn't good at the other, it's the swim races, but I was good at holding my breath, which made me better at swimming, but which really made me better at a skill that was unique. So, so, and I think that's kind of, that's kind of been like the arc of my entire life, you know? Yeah.

Now, what about, because you're living now mostly in Paris. Yeah, about half the year in Paris. Which is frustrating because it used to be every time I'm in New York, I can look you up. We have the best time. But now, a lot of times you're in Paris. So what do you think? New York, Paris, which do you like better? Well, I love both cities. I love Paris.

I'm not particular about places, but my daughter's in school in Paris. So I love to be there because I'm with her, but I'm pretty happy. And I've never been specific to which city is. Which came first, your daughter went there or sorry. No, my daughter was born in New York and her mom is French. So when Dessa was three, she,

And we decided, first of all, and I agree, like there was a great school that she would be able to, I think, you know, get into. And it's academically incredible. And I had friends who their kids went there. And so great.

She started early and went to this incredible school, which gives this amazing education. And yeah, and I love France. I also love New York. I also love every state in the U.S. I've been to. So I'm not particular about location. I kind of think like...

Wherever I am, I'm pretty happy. But you also didn't want to go on the record saying, yeah, I like Paris better than New York. You didn't want to say that. I mean, you got to say the architecture. The architecture is spectacular. Okay. Yeah, but come on. New York's alive 24-7. It has so many incredible museums, parks, adventures. Oh, come on. Hey, I'm not saying, look, New York has great things to offer. You went with New York. Sorry, Paris.

No, no, I have to say, I love both equally. I'm not even joking. It's not like a political, but it's just actually I love both equally. It's true. I do love that you can walk everywhere in both cities. That's also pretty incredible.

In LA, you cannot walk, but I have a motorcycle here to get around, which is pretty amazing. And in California, you're allowed to like to... Yeah. I like they let you go through the... You drove here, right? That was your bike? Yeah, yeah. Electric. He takes my motorcycle and the first thing he does is like, boom. Puts it down? Yes, right away. Well, yeah, I do have a little... Because it was much taller than I... One time...

Remember that time I borrowed his bike? I came and got it. I was working in upstate New York just a couple of years ago. And like, he gives me pieces of the bike back. I'm not kidding. He'll take my bike and I'll be like, oh, here's your mirror. It fell off and I dropped the bike. And here's your taillight. It also fell off. I'll have pieces. I have pieces of my bike. I take pictures and send them to him years later. I said, do you want to borrow anything else of mine? Yeah.

He backed out of our gate up in Ojai. Took it right off the track. It was days before I could get the fence work. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I had to bring it up. Or one time he stayed at my apartment in the city.

And I don't have many things. I have like a few pieces of clothing. They're all identical. And sometimes there's just one and it's like, then therefore it's my favorite thing, but also my, I like one dressy coat. And I come back and I had to go do a gig. So I need this coat. I'm looking for it. And then I find a note and it's in, it's in some space.

rolled up dirty coat. I think it was a hemp coat, but it was like all ripped. I think it was crazy. And in the pocket, it said, hey, I left you this. I took one of yours, but I left you this. This is my favorite jacket, so I'm so happy to leave it with you. And I had a gig. It's true. That's a true story. Was there just one second of fuck that guy?

Just one second. No matter what, you always just like, you always, no, you can't. Then you read the letter and it's, you're laughing and it's hilarious. And yeah, I show up without a coat. So that means I have no pocket. So normally to do magic, you need lots of pockets. You don't have the pockets. It kind of like, it limits the amount of magic. But it's fine. I improvise. Okay. Yeah.

That's a true story. I do sound kind of bad in this. By the way, I never saw that coat again either. Neither did I. So when he says I owe him all that money, it's like, here, we're good. That coat, that motorcycle, we're equal. Oh my God. So...

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So you're spending a lot of time in L.A. because you have to be on this coast. Well, no, I'm with Dessa, and we've been here for the whole month. And, yeah, we've been looking at what we can do, and she's been training, and I've been working on magic. We went to Rio together where we're shooting this episode for Nat Geo where I'm trying to find people that do

really difficult crazy almost magical type things and then the idea is if something is done by one it could be done by others so i find people around the world that have these unique abilities that have been passed down from centuries or generations and uh and and basically convince them to share their secrets with me and that's it came and i lit myself on fire and jumped off a bridge and of course remessed dislocated my shoulder but it was fine broke a rib but

But it's okay. How's Dessa when you come up and she can see you going... Well, I kind of don't show it too much. I think I'm lucky with that. But I don't show it anyway too much. I kind of laugh it off. It's the old stuntman thing. You okay? You okay? Sure. Walks around the corner, steps into an ambulance and goes to the hospital. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. What was that? Oh, that was... Was that Houdini? Some magic movie where the guy does this trick, swallows poison or something, and then just walks out, gets into an ambulance or something? Not Houdini. What you just said. It wasn't Houdini. I don't know. Anyway, some magician movie. Well, never mind. No one knows about it. I just remember that scene. Hey, let me ask you. Not...

Obviously, you love what you're doing, but what is the best gift you get out of

Your fame, your, you know... I think I'm so lucky because as a magician, you can just do magic everywhere, anywhere that you go to anybody. But why does that delight you besides you're good at it? Besides being with my daughter, that's my favorite. Why? It turns people into children. Yeah, you just... The joy of a child. You get to see the best of everybody. You do magic and everybody lightens up and it doesn't matter where, what's the... I mean, I'm so... Like...

like I'm so into it that like if I see two people fighting, like in Paris recently, I saw a guy get into a fight with a delivery guy on a bike and a guy delivering packs. And the guy has his bike lock in his hand. So this is, and there's a whole line of cars. And by the way, I had like my, my,

My ankle's all messed up. So I'm not very functional at the moment. So you hobble over. Hobble right in the middle. And they're about to go at it. And I just pull out my deck of cards. And I'm like, pensez en cartes. And the two guys look at me.

And they're so confused that the fight is over. And I do that often. But any time that I can do magic in any... By the way, the reason I'm off and late is because if somebody asks me to do magic, it's very difficult for me to say no. By the way, I also look at it as like it's a constant...

You can always be practicing. And every time I do something, I learn something and I change it and I tweak it and I add to it. So, you know, you're not trying to be good, but you're always trying to be better and better has no ceiling. So you can always keep doing a little bit to always get better, better. And I think that's part of the joy of being a magician. I think that's the highlight of being a magician, for me at least, you know.

But you go and you go to burn wards and the hole in the log. Hospitals, underage prisons, everywhere. That must be really gratifying. The most, the most.

beyond it and now i have dessa doing it as well and she's performing and she's way better than me of course but uh but anyway yeah that that is the most gratifying thing it's just when you when you when you can distract somebody who's dealing with a lot and kind of break that difficulty and make them smile make them laugh that is the highlight of being a a

for me, of being a close-up magician. You know, we were watching you out before we started the podcast. You were entertaining the troops here. And one of the things that struck me is like, we're so used to being, thinking we're in control.

Thinking we've got life figured out and to be so fucking delighted when we sit there and watch you and have, I mean, watch you like our nose was two inches away from the cards and be just stupefied to have no idea is that's also a gift to people go. You don't know everything and enjoy, enjoy this moment because I'm going to startle you.

But even when it's a skeptic, when you have somebody that's like trying to figure out, that's also good because it adds another little shift into the performance, you know? So, so it's like any reaction for me is amazing. Like even the non-reaction or the thinking reaction or skeptic reaction or the great big reaction, like all of every reaction to me is just incredible. Thank you, Sandy Meisner.

Yeah, yeah. Richard Pinter was the guy that walked me through it. And it was amazing. And even when I was working on my stage show, I would get all of his feedback. And I think that really helped. Yeah. I think that helped.

looking, I think reactions are truthful. And when I shoot my shows, my TV shows, for me, it's like I'll work for a year to make one hour. And it's because if I don't believe the reaction, and that all came from Neighborhood Playhouse or just listen and react. But if I don't believe the reaction, then I don't use the footage. So no matter who it is or what it is, if I don't

like and don't believe that it's a full honest reaction then I don't use it and when I first started people weren't you know the cameras they would kind of act up for them

So I had to learn how to break the ice carefully with the camera far away and start by doing something that would like engage them and then slowly have the camera because I wanted that truthful reaction. And even when we did magic with Kanye, I knew that he was going to be, he was going to be really tricky. And, um, but I, so I knew if I took the ice pick and shoved it through my hand, it would like,

then break the ice literally. And then you could do the other magic because you've already said, don't bleed on my, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to bleed or not. I was like, I have no idea, which made it more, you know, scary, I guess, or, or,

But, um, but, but don't do this at home. No, but do not do any of it. That's for sure. But I think part of the reason that I shifted over to doing those things that are pushing the body or doing things that are, are, are a little, you know, I think like threatening to see or, or scary or is because it's,

Now that people are so used to the whole magic and reaction thing, it's almost like to get the reaction, you have to really break their sense of disbelief. So you have to do something that's so visceral and so real and so believable that then you can apply magic to it.

once you take that defense layer down. So it's been a constant. And my stage show, I was trying to figure out for years, how do you bring those reactions to a stage? Because when people are on stage, they can often act up. So it's like, oh, if I, you know,

eat their ring and then put a hanger down my throat and pull their ring out. You can't deny it. So I started to search for magic that no matter how skeptical you are, if you're watching up close, you have to believe it. And then therefore, you'll get a real reaction. I haven't heard a word you said after hanger retrieving the ring. I'm going, wait, what? It's a wild one. It's a wild one.

Your first special, and I assume the one that launched you into fame was Street Magic. Well, that one, not a lot of people saw that. Really? Yeah, it was when I buried myself alive, which was after that, that suddenly people took notice. And then...

And what was that evolution like from, you know, anonymity to just suddenly everybody knows you. And of course, they're also all wanting to test you and wanting you to... Well, it made it a little...

The one difficulty was as an unknown magician, when I would walk up and kind of play that character of a magician who's doing these weird things, people would really react. But as they started to know me, they knew I was a magician, which means then therefore, oh, he's making a TV show. So it made it more difficult, actually.

Like when I'm in another country and I'm doing magic and people don't know me, it's incredible because I could really push that. You know, I could play with that line of like, oh, wait, what's going on here? And I could really, you know, blur the line of what's, you know, what's real, what's not. And then the magic to me is that much stronger. Sounds like it doesn't hassle you then, your fame.

No. Yeah, that's great. No. Will people let you play serious card games? I think that's Ricky Jason. I think it's a catch-22. If you win as a magician, they say that you cheated. And if you lose, they say you're a bad magician. So I just avoid. But I'll play back with him and get really serious. And we have friends that we play with. But no, I would never cheat to win. It's not fun. Yeah.

It would not be interesting. I, one time when I was young, I showed my friend that was like doing a college game. I was like, I'm going to take everybody's money, but then I'm going to return it. And then I showed, I beat everybody dealing the cards. And I was like, by the way, guys, here's what I did. I cheated you all. And then I, but I just wanted to see if I could pull it off. And it was very easy. And they were a little alarmed and then cool. No, no, no. Yeah. They were like, that's crazy. You really just did that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and,

A magician could easily cheat at cards, for sure. It would be very easy to...

mark a deck or rig a deck or set a deck up in a secret way and then put it into play. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was quite a card shark and he used to make a lot of money doing that. And so me and my brother one time says, well, so how do you do it? And he goes, I cheat.

Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. That is amazing. So that's why you were so like, like,

skeptical when I was first doing magic to you a long time ago. Not skeptical, but you were like, you were on it, but then what would happen is he would be in on it. So when I would be doing magic to other people, he would act like he didn't know and he would kind of egg the outcome on. So it would like people and he'd be like, ah! But it still delights me. Even tricks I've seen a million times, it delights me because, you know, just their delight, their joy

It's really one of the great things you can do for people is magic because it brings them back to that childhood simplicity and love and excitement and all the pure things that we kind of lose as we get older.

So I love how you can just turn a whole gaggle full of like felons into like joyous, you know, children. You know what I mean? What's also funny is, I know he was a magician, but were you a magician ever? No, never. Lots of our friends, lots of people that we know when they were young were magicians. So it's like there's a lot of people that did magic here and there. So it's like there is some sort of, and I think magic, it's one of those things that,

You know, it's logic, it's performance, it's math, it's science, it's estimation. It's so many fun things to combine. What I lock onto immediately is the connection to acting. I mean, when I see a performance, I don't want to see what's coming in advance. What delights me when I see a performance is, whoa, I did not see that coming. That is amazing. And that's all you do is delight people.

Thank you. Yeah, this has been the best, best hour. But I want to say one, I want to go back in time one more second. So I just, so you were saying, what stunt would you not do? And I said, the one I couldn't do is sleep deprivation. He won't bring me to plays anymore because I always nod off in the middle of plays. That's true. I get like an elbow. A lot of people do that. You can hear it.

You know, he's like, no. Yeah, so you don't want to bring him to a play. But the other thing is just the amount of time that we've spent laughing into hysterics. Just on the ground, rolling around. I can see that. Crying with laughter.

So many times. I really, you've given me more laughter, I think, than anybody I know. So thank you for that as well. Oh, thank you. But thanks for coming, buddy. I really do appreciate it. Thank you. Really been a great hour. It's an honor. Thank you.

That was the magnificent David Blaine. It was so surreal to experience his magic in person. And thank you, Woody. Thank you for sharing him with me. It was kind of funny. I said goodbye to David after we were recording and I, you know, went and washed my hands and got my stuff and was going to leave. And this was like about 15 minutes later. He was still, David was still there.

in the building, entertaining about 20 people doing sleight of hand for about 20 minutes. He cannot not perform. It was amazing.

I want to mention David's new documentary adventure series coming soon. It's called David Blaine Do Not Attempt, produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. On the show, David visits remote communities across the world looking for local practitioners of magic. The show premieres March 23rd on National Geographic and streams the next day on Disney Plus and Hulu. Don't miss it.

That's it for our show this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone you love. Be sure and find us on YouTube where you can watch full-length episodes. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you have some time. We'll have more for you next week. Everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, Sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leal, and

Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gann, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarro. We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.

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