I fell in love with magic acts and bridged into that.

The first trick I bought at Macy's was a little wooden board where a quarter would appear and disappear.

For one of my specials, I said, "I'm going to make an airplane disappear." Okay! And the next day, everything went crazy - it was like breaking the internet before the internet.

My mother was really loving and wonderful and tough as hell.

When you see me do a five-minute thing, there's been about two years of preparation behind that. You know, I find that's what it takes to really make it the level of quality I prefer.

For me, I was watching Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Victor Fleming movies, and I said, "I want to tell stories like that. I want to move people like that. But I'm good at magic, so what am I going to do?" So I started using magic for the right reasons - to get the girl.

I really wanted to succeed. I wanted to be accepted. I read every magic book that I possibly could, studied every move, and by the time I was 12, they really accepted me, they embraced me.