Beginning in 2018, Netflix’s Magic for People offered a showcase for the comedy and illusions of Justin Willman. Odd contributors — some who believed they had been being filmed for a documentary on a selected subject (corresponding to self-control, the topic of the collection premiere); some simply randomly discovered on the streets of L.A. — received to witness Willman’s magic. The present ran for 3 legitimately superb seasons, and has lain dormant for the reason that final dropped within the spring of 2020. Willman has saved busy since we noticed his final People episodes: performing People @ Dwelling exhibits over Zoom; creating the Social Distancing Magician Starter Package to boost funds for charity; getting again to stay efficiency as soon as it was protected to take action; and creating a brand new present for Netflix.
Premiering, appropriately, on April Fools’ Day, The Magic Prank Present (additionally on Netflix) is strictly what its title suggests: Members who don’t have magic expertise enlist Willman to assist them prank somebody of their lives, utilizing a customized phantasm. A person who desires to will get again at his spouse for making him suppose his automobile had been repossessed; a daughter who desires to persuade her mother to stop ghosting her dates; the person who desires to drag off a wedding proposal spectacular sufficient for his boyfriend, the most dramatic particular person he is aware of — all of those and extra get entry to Willman and his crew of magic trick creators and prank consultants.
I spoke to Willman final week about (amongst many different topics) how his crew got here collectively, whether or not one prank really went far sufficient for the offense it was addressing and the way the following era of magicians is studying the craft.
You simply carried out in Vancouver at what might be the final Only for Laughs Competition.
I killed it!
I do know you carried out on the Montreal JFL too. Whether or not or not that is actually the top, what has the competition meant on your profession?
Oh man. JFL put me on exhibits with my favourite comedians and handled me like a comic, not a magician, earlier than anyone else did, which was huge for me. I’m positive, as most individuals know, magicians or anyone who makes use of a prop apart from a microphone is commonly put right into a subliminal separate class than simply straight-up stand-up comedians. And JFL by no means noticed it that means. Possibly that’s the Canadian means. They’re simply so good. That’s what they do. I believe it’s been over a decade. We had a gala means again when and actually fostered my profession as type of a comic and magician and never only a magician who does comedy, so it’s unhappy if it’s true.
Did you see indicators in Vancouver that something was amiss?
It was completely regular. I noticed no indicators. The crowds had been nice. The folks had been nice. It was superior. A pair days later, I did have a pair folks textual content me saying, “What did you do? What did you do to JFL?” It flew underneath my radar at the very least.
It’s such an establishment, so this information was actually surprising.
It was very surprising. And we’re in a comedy increase, everybody says, so it appears like enterprise was booming and enterprise was nice, however who is aware of what goes on behind the scenes? Definitely not me.
Let’s get into what you do learn about behind the scenes. You already had a relationship with Netflix after three seasons of Magic for People. How did this evolution of your idea come about?
Effectively, the third season of Magic for People type of got here out mid-COVID — I’d say even early COVID. The advantage of that was that it got here out at a time when folks had been craving healthful, humorous escapism, so it was nice to be that factor and join with folks and be in folks’s properties even when I couldn’t be with them in particular person.
I used to be raring to do extra instantly, however in fact there’s no touching strangers on the nostril in the midst of 2020 or 2021, so it grew to become slightly little bit of a back-to-the-drawing-board time for me. In between me doing exhibits on Zoom day by day, I used to be attempting to suppose, “What’s the subsequent factor? If I don’t do extra magic with people, what’s that factor once we come again? I wish to come again with some concepts.”
I’d all the time beloved prank exhibits. My very first TV look was in 2003. I did a prank present referred to as THEM. It was an acronym, Completely Hidden Excessive Magic, and it was on NBC. We did two half-hours that grew to become a one-hour particular. And I all the time beloved it. That was my first expertise of doing magic for individuals who didn’t know they had been watching a magician.
However I by no means actually got here again to that for years. All my touring, all Magic for People, it’s me doing magic for individuals who know I’m a magician. However there’s this delicate distinction. While you’re watching a magician, no matter they do, you are feeling protected. If I whipped out a chainsaw and lower any person in half onstage, the viewers would applaud, proper? But when I did that very same factor in the midst of my shift at Dwelling Depot and I’m just a few dude, it’s a unique expertise. You don’t suppose it’s a trick instantly. It feels so actual, particularly when folks don’t know they’re being filmed. It’s a really visceral expertise.
What I don’t like about prank exhibits is giving individuals who don’t deserve it a traumatic expertise. It’s slightly cringey, so I went to the thought of, “What if I did a magic prank present just for individuals who deserved it?”
On the tail finish of COVID, I posted on my Instagram, “Would anybody need my assist pranking somebody of their life for motive?” And I received a whole lot of replies. Some had been very foolish and mundane, however some had been like — I may inform I used to be tapping right into a visceral revenge that’s been bugging them for years or settling a rating or sending a message or serving to them say a factor that they haven’t been in a position to say to a roommate or a sister or a beloved one. It felt like a little bit of a karmic Robin Hood-type endeavor.
I whipped that up right into a verbal pitch that I assumed may make sense, and Netflix was enthusiastic about it, in order quickly as we lastly emerged again into the actual world, that’s what we pivoted into. And it grew to become about casting a web for actual individuals who have actual nice tales. I picked my favourite dozen and put collectively my regular magic crew, and it was a unique vibe. As an alternative of simply doing magic for enjoyable leisure services, it felt like we had been really, in some small means, serving to folks present a service that they couldn’t discover an outlet for on their very own.
It’s all the pieces from a girl getting a sister to cease stealing her garments or sending a message to a boyfriend who received’t cease texting and driving or serving to with a revenge that’s 20 years within the making. All of it felt justified. And it additionally allow us to really feel like we may go all in and never maintain again, as a result of it appears like this particular person deserves it. I hope the viewers benefit from the ruthlessness for good.
Inform us slightly bit about Stu MacLeod, Kyle Marlett and Austin Janik, who’re the magic consultants that we meet on this present?
Stu MacLeod is a magician who I used to be a fan of first. He was a part of a magic duo referred to as Barry and Stuart within the U.Ok. I’d fanboy over their movies for years, and we lastly met and have become buddies. Then he moved to L.A. and we rapidly grew to become collaborators on Magic for People. He’s this quiet, very considerate magic mastermind who can all the time work out a strategy to make a trick higher and remind me by no means to decide on ok: “If we are able to put in one other six hours in a single day to make this factor higher, it’s value it in the long run.” You all the time want any person like that in your crew.
Kyle is a magician. Fifteen years in the past, this child hit me up on Myspace — he would possibly’ve been 15 or 16 on the time — and he would ship me movies of tips that he’d give you and say, “I really like your stuff. Should you ever want any assist making magic tips, hit me up.” There was a candy boyish innocence to this child. Now he’s a grown-up child, however we’ve been buddies without end and I’ve watched his magic expertise evolve and his means to push himself and give you loopy methods to drag off a prop. We’ve got a enjoyable shorthand, however he additionally thrives when somebody is pushing him to make one thing higher. So the ripping and the frustration that you simply see between me, him and Kyle within the present may be very actual, but in addition very brotherly and loving.
Austin’s this new magician who I had heard about doing exhibits on the Magic Fortress. Some folks had stated, “He jogs my memory of you again within the day.” Concurrently, I’m like, “Oh, I wish to meet this man, and in addition, who the hell is this man?” However we hit it off. He’s, like, 24, so he’s a whippersnapper, however he’s very sensible, and also you want recent eyes, particularly in a bunch the place you may have been working collectively for years. Stu and I typically will learn one another’s minds and consider the identical issues, which is nice, but in addition you want somebody who’s going to return at you with one thing fully completely different or query what you already suppose is a good plan. So Austin is that this up-and-coming boy genius who was an incredible addition.
Kim Congdon wrote on the present. I’d seen her within the golf equipment. We had an incredible vibe, and he or she’d pitch me jokes. She’s not a magician, however she loves magic, and he or she used to jot down on Impractical Jokers. So she loves pranks and messing with folks. She helped me with the preliminary pitch and concept of the present, so once we had been like, “We’re going to do it. Do you wish to actually come see how the sausage is made?,” she was completely down.
Talking of Austin, it looks as if magic, extra so than different artistic pursuits, requires a whole lot of mentorship. Is that true — it’s how folks study the craft?
It’s very true. There’s solely a lot in magic which you can study in books. Once I got here up, it was all about VHS tapes. I’d order these tapes, and I would study issues. However should you didn’t have a real-life magician who was doing the factor that you simply aspire to do, it was actually, actually onerous to get all of the filth, all of the insights on it and to see how DIY next-level arts-and-crafts magic is.
I grew up in St. Louis, so I labored my means by. I used to be fortunate to have many native mentors, after which, as soon as I began as a youngster doing magic contests and competitions across the nation, I’d fall into the circle of no matter mentor I wanted subsequent. It’s as if I manifested my means by the best folks and received all this nice steerage alongside the best way, and ended up returning that favor — similar to Kyle kind of stalked me on Myspace from the start, and Austin was very, very cool and trustworthy about eager to do the issues that I’m as much as and eager to study the ropes.
In magic, similar to comedy, there’s a whole lot of competitiveness, pettiness and jealousy, however there’s additionally a whole lot of nice sharing of concepts and mentoring. That’s an enormous a part of magic, for positive.
The magic guys must defer to you on the present, however additionally they have their very own pursuits in sustaining secrecy as members of the magic neighborhood. What debates did you may have about what would and wouldn’t make it on digital camera?
I’d say all of us magicians are very opinionated, so there have been tons. I’d say Kyle has grown to be very assured standing up for his concepts and what he thinks is the best way to go. And all of us have completely different ethics in magic about the way you pull issues off and the way far it’s okay to go, and naturally, there’s additionally the ethics of no matter we do, attempting to do it in a means that’s trustworthy and true to life for the viewers.
As we’d strategy Magic for People, our litmus take a look at was all the time: We wish to make it possible for what we find yourself placing on-screen is how the individuals who had been there would describe the expertise. The particular person current within the phase, after they watch it again, shouldn’t be going to say, “Oh man, that’s completely completely different and re-edited than how I noticed it.” Everybody who was there would say that’s what occurred to them, as a result of we wish to make the expertise for the viewers as robust and as highly effective as it’s for the individuals who had been watching it stay.
Additionally, while you’re making a TV present, clearly you’re attempting to truncate issues to an affordable variety of minutes, and there’s simply a whole lot of artistic variations. Each magician has a wholesome ego, so that they actually need the concept that we go together with to be an concept that they pitched, versus having to construct an concept that was any person else’s. There’s a whole lot of compromise and wholesome arguing, generally in lengthier methods than obligatory to actually make it clear that this is the reason we’re going on this route.
Generally I’m flawed. Generally I’m like, “Kyle, Stu, you had been proper.” I’d say Stu is a really considerate, calculated, meticulous thinker who may be very keen to help an concept from any person apart from himself if he is aware of it’s a greater means. He’s typically a dependable particular person for me to choose his mind if I’m torn and I may go both route. He could be a sounding board for positive.
Once we get to a phantom procuring cart gag that you simply take a look at on Kim, her response made it appear to be that may not have been the primary time she was a mark for an phantasm. How did she combine with the magic consultants on the crew?
What’s cool is that Kim has little interest in being a magician. She writes roasts. She writes for all of the roast battles. She could be a fairly savage comic and take fairly harsh hits. She loves and respects magic, however may concurrently make enjoyable of the good lengths we go to for a silly trick, whereas additionally respecting it and eager to study the main points.
She was by no means suspicious, like, “What are you guys going to check out on me?” She was very completely happy being our recent eyes, and that was an enormous a part of her function in issues. Once we had been attempting the shopping-cart factor out on her, you can inform that she was already like, “All proper, one thing’s about to occur. I don’t know what it’s, however let me attempt to behave like a standard particular person and see if that is any good.” That may be very a lot what her outlook was daily when she would come into the workplace.
You’ve talked earlier than about folks considering they wish to know the way an phantasm is finished after they really don’t. Was the thought right here to demystify some of what you do to scratch that itch on your followers?
That’s a great way to place it, as a result of if I’m going to allow you to in, I don’t wish to continually be attempting to defend you from issues. However I additionally know that you simply don’t wish to be let in on all the pieces.
So what we’d do is shoot fly-on-the-wall, and we wouldn’t censor ourselves in dialog; we wouldn’t disguise sure issues from the digital camera. We made these choices within the edit about how a lot we thought the viewer can be happy to be let in on, and the way a lot can be greatest left as a shock.
Some tips, how they’re accomplished or the work that goes into them, bolsters the attention-grabbing nature of our craft. For instance, within the ghoster prank, I used to be okay letting viewers actually see how a few of these little convincers alongside the best way are accomplished — the hand over the candle. And likewise, the R&D and the discussions about how on earth I’m going to fade in the midst of this restaurant.
And we’re not censoring ourselves. If you wish to Google what a De Kolta chair is and what an Asrah kind is, folks can discover these issues out and possibly work out precisely how we did what we did in the long run. However for the viewing expertise, I nonetheless needed the viewers to have an expertise akin to what the mark is experiencing within the second. Even when the viewers know greater than the mark does, I nonetheless need them to be shocked on the ultimate end result.
You already talked about discovering contributors by your Instagram, and we see that within the present. Is that the one place they got here from?
I’d say 80 p.c of them had been. I knew a pair the place one particular person in a relationship has an issue with how a lot the opposite particular person texts and drives. I knew that will be a quite common theme. I knew that there are people who find themselves ghosters, who’ve folks of their life who’re upset that they’re continual ghosters and wish them to seek out happiness.
For the texting whereas driving prank, Sam got here from my Instagram. She’s really a fan. What’s so humorous is that she introduced her boyfriend, Ryan, the mark, to certainly one of my exhibits in L.A. a yr earlier than we filmed that stunt. So I used to be very hesitant: “How is he not going to know that I’m that man?” And he or she’s like, “He doesn’t keep in mind something. He’s an area cadet. Should you put on a wig and he solely sees you from behind, he received’t know.” And he or she was proper. I believe, looking back, my voice sounded considerably acquainted to him, however fortunately he didn’t put two and two collectively as a result of he does certainly have space-cadet qualities.
The ghosting factor, we did have an issue with a few the individuals who reached out by way of my Instagram being keen to be on TV. It’s one factor to DM me after I ask, “Hey, do you want assist pranking somebody?” However then after I join them with a producer who’s like, “Yeah, we’re really going to do that,” lots of people get chilly toes: “Oh my God, no, they’ll kill me.” So a number of individuals who had any person who they needed to placed on a world stage and name them out for his or her wrongdoing got here from Craigslist.
Then, often, with the Instagram folks, it grew to become clear that they might in all probability acknowledge me as a result of they both adopted me too, or they’d heard their roommate or one thing speak about me. We put a lot effort and time in, it will be an actual bummer if proper initially somebody’s like, “Oh, you’re that Justin man,” and I’m like, “Hello, I work at a cryo place now.”
Did you may have a contingency plan in case you completed the prank after which the mark wouldn’t signal the discharge?
We didn’t. The confederate, whoever was setting them up, would signal a launch that I believe would legally get us round having the ability to movie the 2 of them with certainly one of them not understanding. Possibly I ought to look into that. However for essentially the most half, I trusted that by the top of most of those bits, the sense of aid that will come over them that this was all not actual and that this was arrange by somebody they love for an actual motive would trump any sense of embarrassment. Fortunately, it did.
There have been different bits that we did the place we may disguise the discharge kind in a stack of papers they needed to signal for one thing else, like in the event that they’re coming to a cryotherapy place, they should launch legal responsibility for that. And while you’re signing a stack of papers and also you’re able to get a therapeutic massage, you don’t learn the tremendous print on all the pieces. While you’re coming to a sleep research, it’s important to signal a bunch of stuff. You slip in slightly “You’re being filmed. Do you launch your likeness rights?,” and so they signal that as effectively.
So we had been in a position to be slightly slick in that sense. The magician methods had been used even behind the scenes.
Because you introduced up Ryan, the texting driver, what do you say to somebody like me, for instance, who thinks a prank shouldn’t be a proportional lesson for somebody who does that, and perhaps it wasn’t unhealthy sufficient?
I’m glad to listen to you say that. My largest concern on that day was, I saved attempting to place myself in his footwear. If I actually thought I used to be within the backseat of a really loopy one that I occurred to get of their automobile, I’d bounce out of the automobile and attempt to do a barrel roll on the bottom, or I’d strangle the driving force to attempt to cease them of their tracks. One way or the other, we had been in a position to gauge his persona and understand that he in all probability wouldn’t attempt to kill me. However he did certainly attempt to get out of the automobile, and fortunately, we thought forward of that and broke his door knob.
I’ll say that Sam and Ryan have since gotten engaged. So I’m excited to listen to how his texting downside has proceeded, as a result of clearly she despatched us a pair clips of him behind the wheel driving a automobile very a lot on his telephone. It’s a kind of soiled little habits that extra folks do than all of us prefer to admit, so hopefully, when folks watch it, they establish along with her and the culprits see themselves in Ryan and type of get it. I’d be curious what we may have accomplished to scare him extra. Our cops had been fairly tough on him, however hey, if we get one other season, I’m keen to go more durable.
What number of prank pitches had been deserted for being too mean-spirited?
There have been instances the place it appears very simple, while you’re attempting to pitch a prank, to get to some kind of gory, ugly, obvious dying of the one you love — like the primary pitch for the frozen head factor, seeing the top fly off — and a few of these felt like they had been an excessive amount of. That’s why we had the frozen head be a transparent block of glass of ice, however it was completely different than you’d suppose a frozen human head would look, simply to mood it down a bit.
While you’re attempting to make some extent and also you do go a thousand p.c too far, now they’re going to carry a grudge concerning the prank that you simply did to make the purpose, versus receiving the message you had been making the purpose about. So it was about attempting to all the time go slightly more durable than we have to with a purpose to make the purpose, however not so onerous and up to now that we had been making a grudge that requires its personal retribution down the road.
To that time, the present largely retains it mild, however the first episode includes a darkish state of affairs with Kendrick and Kendale — that Kendale outed his brother to their household. Was there any prep behind the scenes to ensure this wasn’t going to show right into a severe blowout?
Just a little additional element is that Kendrick stated that that occurred after they had been youngsters, like 10 and 12 years outdated. And Kendrick went on to inform me that when Kendale stated that to their household, that Kendrick himself wasn’t even fully positive that he was homosexual, however Kendale as his youthful brother simply knew one thing about his brother earlier than he even absolutely knew it about himself.
And I’d say they love one another. They work collectively; they’ve completely different companies collectively. I knew that they weren’t on the outs as brothers in order that this might simply make it worse. It felt like this was this little imperfection of their relationship that was so way back, it’s like, “There’s by no means time to deliver it up, however it does hassle me.” All of us have these sorts of issues — these little conversations that aren’t urgent. There’s by no means time to deliver that factor up, however it will suck to stay out our lives by no means having cleared the air on it. They appeared to be wholesome and powerful sufficient as a unit that I didn’t suppose it will create an issue or a rift between them.
I think about you shot extra pranks than we see on this first season. Have you ever already shot sufficient for a complete second season?
We haven’t shot sufficient for a complete second season. There have been a pair that didn’t make it, however for essentially the most half, all the large swings that we took, you get to see on digital camera. We do have a whole lot of concepts and a whole lot of requests that we didn’t have the bandwidth or the funds to deal with, or a pair huge loopy concepts that we didn’t have the manufacturing time for. So we have now sufficient concepts, and I’m positive as soon as the present comes out, my inbox will begin getting flooded with a bunch of loopy new requests and extra concepts that I didn’t consider.
Creatively talking, hopefully it’s a present that at the very least the preliminary kernel of an concept writes itself in that it’s actual and it comes from an actual story. Then it’s nearly getting the crew collectively and determining what the hell to do about it.