You've had an incredible slate of talent on the show, between Corbin Bleu, Debbie Gibson, and Flavor Flav. What were some of the highlights of showing these performers a little piece of your world? Did any of them surprise you?
They all surprised me for different reasons. "Magic With the Stars" really boasts an incredible, diverse lineup of people. Whether we have an Olympian, a gold medalist, a comedian, a singer, or a UFC champion, it's an eclectic group of people, and they all have their own skill sets. That's what fascinates me, because you're taking [the] history of my work, my body of work that I spent decades perfecting, that is really, truly, without boasting but rather confidently saying, revolutionary. My levitation won The Greatest Illusion of All Time [in] the largest magic publication, Vanish.
You take Miles Brown or Corbin Bleu, two really skilled actors [with] incredible bodies of work, both mainly in two different arenas. You have Corbin, who's more of a Broadway guy, even though he has the television experience. And then you have Miles Brown, [who] did "Black-ish" — many seasons of that. You take these two, and you teach them my levitation that took me 22 years to create. It creates a very interesting scenario because things that you wouldn't anticipate happen — like, Miles was scared of heights and he had to go up a ladder. We had to overcome that fear and address it.
Then they literally are flying around, levitating 20, 30 feet in the air, in full light, right in front of the live audience — 1,500 people in front of the cameras. And you see who rises to the occasion — who's better at doing closeup magic or mentalism, or more of a stage illusion, and then the grand illusion. You get these three different categories in every show, which gives them an opportunity to shine and bring stuff that's in their wheelhouse and stuff that's outside of their wheelhouse to magic. They ultimately are performing illusions that professional headline magicians are not even doing or not capable of doing.
It's a high-level show with incredible talent, and it's fun, family-friendly, and it's something that I'm really, really excited about. You got me judging. You got Emmy award-winning comedian Loni Love. You got master magician, with over 16,000 shows in Vegas, Lance Burton. And [you have] the hilarious Eddie Griffin [with] over 75 movies — [a] standup comedian, the comedian's comedian. We have all of the elements for the ultimate family show on television. Hopefully, people will tune in, and I know they'll get addicted to it.
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