If you haven’t watchedDerek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itselfon Hulu yet, I highly implore you do so — just grab a hankie first.Frank Ozdirects a film adaptation of acclaimed multidisciplinary magicianDerek DelGaudio’s unique, emotional, and invigorating show about identity, storytelling, and the truth. To say anything else would spoil some of the wild things you’ll see in the show, so I’ll leave it at this: You’ll be impressed, enthralled, and more moved than you expected.
I was lucky enough to speak with Derek DelGaudio over a wide-ranging Zoom interview. We dug deep into the construction of the show, the importance of personal storytelling as a method of trust, the keen insight of his audience, and the various celebrities who made their way into the audience. We also chatted about his experience consulting onChristopher Nolan’sThe Prestige,and his upcoming mystery role inSteven Soderbergh’s thrillerKIMI.
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COLLIDER: You talk about this a little bit in the show; I’d love to know specifically what is the first time you remember seeing a magic trick or a piece of sleight of hand and thinking, “Oh, this is what I want to do or need to do”?
DEREK DELGAUDIO: I saw a guy make a pocket knife vanish, and it was enough to set me on a path to learning about sleight of hand and stuff like that. That was the gateway drug, I guess. Seeing someone do real sleight-of-hand up close and personal was a shock to my system, and enough for me to want to learn about it for myself.
What do you think it was about seeing that pocket knife disappear that scratched an itch you didn’t know was there?
DELGAUDIO: I think there’s a certain beauty and intoxication I found in mystery and in the idea that mystery is something that could be manufactured and not just happened upon. It can be something you generate, even if it’s for yourself. That to me resonated. Life was a mystery to me, so I thought perhaps if you start with a small one, you could unpack it and maybe dig your way out and figure out what the hell all this is.
To me, watchingIn & Of Itself, a lot of it felt deconstructive about the art form of magic, and especially your relationship to it. And I’m just curious, talking about your very first trick, I want to ask where you are at right now with your relationship with magic. How are you feeling about it?
DELGAUDIO: It’s a paint. I mean, it’s there if I need it. It’s a complicated relationship in the sense that it’s something I’ve obviously spent a great deal of time learning about and practicing. But I spent a lot of time thinking about it and practicing it without considering what I might do with it. And then when I started thinking about what I might actually do with it, the things that I was interested in doing, it wasn’t necessarily the tool for the job. It wasatool forajob, but I had to reconcile how this craft that I had picked up could be used to create art and meaningful things. And there’s a paradox in that the better you get at sleight of hand and illusions, the more invisible your work becomes. And the things that I found so beautiful about it were the things that you couldn’t see. So conveying that to an uneducated audience is very difficult, and I found myself just kind of trapped by my own history and my own medium. And so I have learned to separate myself from the craft in a way. It’sathing that Icando, but it’s not necessarilythething that I do, and certainly not the thing that defines me. It’s just a skill set that I have. And I’ve learned to use the thinking and the things I’ve picked up along the way in other mediums and how it translates to storytelling and filmmaking, poetics and things like that. I’m just figuring out what applies to these different areas and how they can be used in service of something other than deceiving someone.
So we’re already kind of talking about this show and your work’s search for an identity that doesn’t feel so rigid or so tightly defined. And I’m curious, on this journey, when did you figure out that you needed to tell your very personal life story? What was that process like?
DELGAUDIO: Well, it was during writingIn & Of Itself. I was thinking about these ideas, separate from me. I was thinking about the ideas of identity and what it means to be and be seen, be and be known, and [how] identity is an object that’s created between us that we can discuss. And it was very conceptual. And I was in the process of writing and I would show up to rehearsals with Frank [Oz, director]. He agreed before there was a script, he agreed to come on board and help. And so I would present things to him, “Here’s what I’m thinking,” and I would write something and then tell him or send it to him. And there was one thing I wrote and it was very abstract, and he didn’t really understand what it was after I performed a version of it for him. And he said, “I don’t get what this is about.” And I said, “Tonight I’ll write you something and explain it to you,” essentially. And my explanation was a very personal narrative. And he’s like, “Why aren’t you just sayingthis?” And I said, “Well, because I don’t want them to think it’s about me. Because the show’s not about me, it’s about them. They just don’t know it until it’s too late.” And I didn’t want anyone to confuse the work for being a one-man show about this guy’s life story and “woe is me” and all that crap. I had no interest in that, and so I was avoiding personal narratives completely. But I was, at that point, unable to accept that they need a way to enter these ideas that’s more traditional. And we understand things through stories, especially personal narratives where we can watch someone go through an experience or hear their story, and it’s an easy way for us to access ideas. So personal narrative became a part ofIn & Of Itselfas a way for the audience to digest the ideas that I was trying to present. But it wasn’t something I wanted to do or planned on doing until it became necessary.
And speaking of making the show about the audience, but them not knowing it until it’s too late, for me the big showpiece that really makes that idea explode is the letters sequence, where you have audience members read very personal letters that seem to apparate on the spot.
DELGAUDIO: Well, that’s the moment where the arrow of attention turns from me to them, and I start to slowly unveil what this is actually about. And it becomes very clear at that point.
It absolutely does. And I have a couple of questions about the sequence. The first one: you can’t help, as an audience member, watching somebody do this but think and ask, “How on earth is this guy doing that?” And I’m curious, what is your relationship with that old adage, “A magician never reveals his secrets?” How do you feel about that?
DELGAUDIO: Yeah. I think that it’s… I feel very strongly about it, but not for the reasons one might think. There are very few, what I would say, real magicians that I have met in my lifetime. And one of them once told me, “You don’t keep secrets from people, you keep themforpeople.” And it took a while to understand what that meant. But there is obviously power in concealing information from other people, and how you use it is very important. And for me, what I’m revealing needs to be greater than whatever it is I’m concealing. And if revealing the thing that I’m concealing destroys the thing that I’ve made, then I’m strongly opposed to it, because it’s the equivalent of burning a painting. It would be like painting something for you, and then by telling you the process it bursts into flames and no longer exists. The beauty of whatever beautiful thing you managed to create is just instantly gone the second that you reveal it. It changes it. There’s a level, obviously, of craft that can be appreciated, but craft is obviously different than art. And I’m happy to talk about craft in the context of craft, but not in the context of the art in that particular area, because you’re actually talking about destroying art and not about just revealing secrets. It’s an interesting discussion. And some people have turned secrets into the tropes of performance. Exposing a thing becomes the performance of a thing.
Like a Penn and Teller or something like that?
DELGAUDIO: Yeah. Who I love, I think they’re great. But they also know the value ofnotrevealing things. As much as they are fine showing you what they show you, there’s a lot of things that they don’t show you and have gone to great lengths to never, ever, ever show anyone, because they understand the value of maintaining something beautiful. And a beautiful mystery is very difficult to create. And it’s just something to be cherished. You don’t want to destroy something beautiful. And there are times where it just changes the meaning of it and what a thing is, and there’s no going back. You can’t unsee it. It is a binary in that regard.
You can’t unring the bell.
DELGAUDIO: Yeah. And so it’s a choice and sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes it’s the point. But I am fine helping other people and sharing with them. I’m not a vault who just won’t share things. I’m happy to, it just has to be in the proper context. And usually, if that question is being asked, I can’t help but feel like I failed, because it’s just not the point. I remember when the filmRomacame out, no one was talking about the special effects in that film, which are extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary, the use of effects. But if that’s what people came away from that movie talking about, before anything else was discussed, it’s like, “Well, kind of, you should watch it again, maybe. There’s other things there to think about.” So I feel like I haven’t done enough, if that’s what they’re left thinking about.
I would say it’s very evident, and it was my personal experience too, it felt very easy to give yourself over to what you were presenting, the very raw emotions kind of brought up, and the feelings of connection and togetherness. I’m curious, what does it feel like? Because when we watch these people read these letters, it feels really raw and —
DELGAUDIO: It is. It’s real.
You said something like, “I promise no harm will come to you,” but at times it felt like certainly some discomfort. And I’m just curious what that felt like to be next to so intimately, to know that you were kind of a cause of that. Were there ever any moments where you almost had to put out an emotional fire, or something like that?
DELGAUDIO: I was never there to elicit a reaction. Contrary to what is presented, which is very emotional reactions, the reactions were not the point. The transformation was the point, even if that was internal and there was no [physicalization]. A physical, emotional reaction was obviously nice for the rest of us to be able to understand what that person was experiencing. But I don’t know. I’m the kind of guy who’ll break into your house to leave you the thing you’ve always wanted. I’ll take that gamble. But it has to bethe thingthat you always wanted or didn’t know that you’ve always wanted. And that in itself takes time and experience and clear intentions of where that line is of what you’re doing. And yes, bringing someone up and putting them in a position that may or may not evoke an emotional response, there’s a lot of vulnerability in that. But I was also aware of that, which is why I was the first to be vulnerable on that stage every night. And never wanted anyone to think I would put them in a position to do something that I wouldn’t do first myself. And I feel like I had to earn their trust and earn those moments, and they could easily be unearned. And I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it was exploitative or anything like that. There was no coaxing or coercing responses or anything like that.
DELGAUDIO: Yeah. Always, always. I always asked them, “Is this something you’re comfortable sharing?” And if they said no, I told them that’s okay, and they walked back to their seat. That only happened two, maybe three times out of 700 and some performances. And not for a second would I [say], “Are you sure?” So the audience saw someone come up on stage, open a letter, go back to their seat. But it wasn’t about eliciting a response, it was about this revelation of love, really. It’s a gift of love, of someone revealing that they are seen and loved in a way that they may not have even acknowledged for themselves, and that someone else acknowledging that in them reveals to themself, and then to the rest of us, an aspect of this human that we literally didn’t see or know existed prior to this moment. The idea of reminding someone how loved they are is, to me, worth the gamble of, “Will this person maybe be uncomfortable for a minute?” There were people who didn’t come up when they were randomly chosen. I was like, “Okay, fine. We’ll get someone else,” and then get someone else, and they’d come up. And it only happened a couple of times also, but then afterwards, the person who refused to come up regretted it and was like, “I wish I would have known. Do you have letters for me? Do I have a letter?” They wanted in now.
I wanted to step away fromIn & Of Itselfa little bit. You are, as far as I know, attached to a Steven Soderbergh movie calledKIMI, is that correct?
DELGAUDIO: There’s no turning back. That is right.
This is such an interesting pairing of creative minds. I love Soderbergh myself, and I love the screenwriter David Koepp, and I love the idea that you’re in it. What is it that attracted you about this film? And, if you could share, what is your role like?
DELGAUDIO: My role is that of… It’s an ensemble cast, and I am one of the central figures in the cast. I should really ask them what I’m allowed to say, because I’m not entirely sure. But yeah, it’s a surprisingly meaty role for him to offer me without having any knowledge of if I’m capable of doing this thing or not. And so it was really humbling, obviously, that he asked. And I was like you in that I was like, “Huh. That’s an interesting choice. Good for him for thinking outside of the box.” Because the one thing I will say is it is a surprising departure from what one might expect from me and from anyone, really. It’s a surprising choice. And I’m glad he asked. It was a really great experience to be able to work with Steven and the people that I got to work with on that film. It was very rewarding.
I was surprised to find that —I recently rewatched this movie, actually— you have a special thanks on the Christopher Nolan filmThe Prestige.
DELGAUDIO: Ha! Yeah.
You consulted on that film, is that correct?
DELGAUDIO: I did. My dear friends, the late Ricky Jay and dear friend Michael Weber, consulted on that movie and they had to stop consulting on it, and the production was still continuing and they needed someone to come fill their shoes. So I became the guy that helped facilitate the magic on set and helped the actors, primarily Hugh Jackman, learn what it was to become a magician and embody that. And so yeah, that was a very intimidating for a — I was like 24 years old, something like that. But it was a really good experience.
What was the most surprising element of working with Christopher Nolan? What do you feel like you took away from him?
DELGAUDIO: I mean, obviously the focus. Rare to see someone that focused and cool [when working on a] machine that is so big and so vast, and to have so much on the line, and to see someone at the helm of that being cool was impressive. And being young at the time, not knowing what it takes to get to the point where you’re that cool under pressure. So watching him work was almost like seeing a movie version of a director. He even looked the part. He had a scarf on and just had a cool accent. He just looked and acted the part. And it wasn’t posturing, he really does understand how to make a film, obviously.
The other thing that I took away was Hugh Jackman was the first movie star I’d ever met. I had met a lot of famous people but I had never met the Clark Gable, comes out of his trailer, smiles and there’s a twinkle in his teeth, and everyone loves [him]. I mean, a George Clooney level of just everything. Because usually when you meet actors in person, they feel like, “Oh, you’re like a person.” But Hugh was six-four. He’d just doneWolverineor something so he was just completely shredded, just handsome and charming and amazing and generous and kind. On every Friday, he would go around the set and give out scratch cards to everyone on set, personally hand them out to every single individual on set, and it was just a fun thing to do on Fridays. Christian [Bale] was in character all the time and you couldn’t even recognize him. He didn’t even look like himself some of the time. He was invisible and immersed himself in the role. And Hugh Jackman did the same but from a different perspective and a different way. So it was amazing to watch two masters of a craft really digest something that I know so well. And so watching them assume the role of what it means to be a magician was really fascinating and rewarding. And no one was working on a surface level on that film. These are guys who really dig deep and try to do the work. And it was really amazing to watch that.
Going back toIn & Of Itself:You mentioned him a little bit before, Frank Oz, the director of both the stage version and this film version. I’m curious, for you as a performer, what adjustments or changes did you find yourself making to play for the lens more than just the stage, especially in these long closeups of abject vulnerability?
DELGAUDIO: None. None. Zero. Zero change for the camera. Which was a pleasant surprise for us in terms of me seeing it in the edit, because normally when you see a stage production, it feels like a stage production. You know? You’re on a stage. But the manner in which I performed the show was that it was very… Casual is not the right word. Unassuming. And laid back, to say the least. At least one review was like, “I don’t even know if this guy wants to be there.” I wasn’t performing in the traditional show business sense. And that was a conversation with Frank early on. I would be like, “Hey, I see them leaning in a lot in the back. Should I speak up?” And Frank went, “No. Don’t. Don’t. Just let them lean in.” And so thankfully I had a collaborator who didn’t mind letting the audience work for it, which has its own effect in the show. But on film, it was a pleasant surprise to see how well that worked for the camera.
I would love to ask what it feels like for you once you clock a known or a famous person in the audience. The couple of moments I noticed in the film were you calling Bill Gates a leader, you calling David Blaine your brother. Does that change any expectation for you? Does it give you butterflies? What does that feel like?
DELGAUDIO: It changes now.[laughter]It certainly changes things as the narrative shifts.
Yes. Of Mr. Gates, yes.
DELGAUDIO: Yeah, exactly. People are complicated. But yeah, I never leaned into the celebrity aspects of it, or the known figure aspects of it in terms of live performances, certainly. There were nights where it was unavoidable. Like the first time Stephen Colbert came, he stood up, and he chose “Idiot,” and it was just hilarious. There’s no way to not call Stephen Colbert an idiot in front of 150 people and have him agree with you and have that not be comedy gold. And, obviously, having those known people in the room elevates the experience in some aspects, where people feel like they’re seeing something that matters, because when important people are in the room, it feels like the event is important. And if people who are of perceived status are there, it feels like, “Oh, we’re really at a thing.” So it changed it more for the audience than for me, I think, in most occasions. I always worried if it would change what it was about too much in that if they’re too famous or they don’t take it seriously, [it] was really a problem. Famous people are less likely to take it seriously than non-famous people, and they’re flippant about it. And that was always a bummer when people who are known would choose something and stand up and clearly it wasn’t authentic, it was an attempt at humor and things like that. And Colbert’s was genuine. He really had a philosophy. And I found footage of him onThe Colbert Reportbackstage early on claiming that all he is and wants to be is an idiot. He really meant it. And you felt it. But when someone chooses something like “Space Pirate” or something, it’s just clearly disingenuous. So those things would taint the experience more than if a non-known person would do that. So it was just heightened either way. We had a very recognizable person choose addict, and you just felt people’s hearts sink because it’s not how they associated this person, but seeing a person of that status have that sort of vulnerability and honesty really gave it some gravitas and was like, “Wow, this is really legit.” And then other times it could do the opposite in that if they are making light of it somehow, it delegitimizes it a little bit. So it was just extremes. And I knew that going into it, so I just tried to ensure that I honored their time equally as everyone else’s.
In the film, there are a few known people. We had many others in an earlier cut, because you have the footage, you play and see what works and what doesn’t. And the more celebrities that were in it, the more of a betrayal it felt to the entirety of the experience, because it changed what the show was about or supposed to be about. And it stopped being about all of us and started being more about, “Oh, spot the famous people.” It kind of put your mind in a different headspace. But then it also felt disingenuous to not include some of the [celebrities]. They’re people too. And their relationship with identity is as complex, and in some cases more complex, than the average person, because being a known person in the world just adds a layer of navigating your own personality in a way that other people might not have to deal with. So it felt like we had to honor that concept even, that there are people in this world that we know who they are and how we see them. So then it became about curation of who makes the cut and who doesn’t and why. The film is, and the show was written to be, timeless in a sense, out of time and out of context. But because it’s a film and because it’s basically an archive for the future, having people who are in the zeitgeist right now inform what the work is about in a way that supplies context. Having Ronan Farrow in the audience, it’s like “right now.” It’s not that it’s because it’s Ronan Farrow, it’s because he’s a part of a larger narrative that directly links to what some of this work is about. DeRay Mckesson’s in there, from Black Lives Matter. [Performance artist] Marina Abramovic is the woman I whispered to. And hers is an example of honoring the person. I have a great deal of respect for Marina and obviously what she’s done, and [the whisper] was, I don’t wanna say “improvisation,” but that was what felt most appropriate in the moment for Marina. I had whispered things to other people before, but that one just happened to be her and it felt appropriate at that moment for that person. But yeah, I didn’t attempt to treat them any differently than I would treat anyone else, but our perception of them is obviously different than it is when we see anyone else.
That’s interesting, because perception versus “what somebody really is” is kind of what the show is about, right?
DELGAUDIO: Right. That’s why it was like, “Well, we have to include some of them, otherwise we’re missing part of the discussion. We’re intentionally omitting a large part of the discussion.” Which I have never really explained the way that I’ve just explained it to you, or at least at that length, but it is something really important that we thought about. That’s been one of the few things that people have pointed out as a [criticism]. “I was with him until I saw all the celebrities.” Which I understand. But there’s a very explicit reason for it, and without it, it’s just leaving out an important and honest real part of the conversation. You can’t deny the truth, and I have to include it.
So regarding perception, the book, of which Mr. or Ms. Tomorrow writes what they think the ending will be, their perception of what your story is, what the show’s story is, have you ever gotten it back and they utterly nailed it? They just completely got the ending?
DELGAUDIO: You mean literally or metaphorically? Or both?
Well, a little of both, yeah.
DELGAUDIO: Oh, both. Both have happened. Both have happened. There have been people who literally were like, “At the end of the show, Derek will find a way to balance his own identity, who he is, and how he’s seen by others. And he, in doing so, will reveal who we are in the process.” There’s a guy in the film, he’s only there briefly in the book section, where they just say what the show is and wrap it up in a way that’s like, “Oh, you understood this thing better than me.” They just saw it and they got it. And when people did stumble upon the ending, it was very, very rare. I could fit them on one hand. When they stumbled on it so radically on the nose, that experience for them obviously was beyond transcendent. They became the authors of the most impossible thing they’ve ever witnessed in their lives. If you think about it from their perspective, they imagined a thing, and then went to a theater the next day, and the thing they imagined happened. And they’re left going, “Does he manifest this every night? Does he do the thing that they write every night?” Their experience was just so much bigger than I could ever have possibly hoped for or live up to again. It was really magical when that happened, and beautiful. And it enhanced it, it didn’t detract from it. You would think that having someone read the end of your show on stage is not a good idea, but it’s so impossible that it just made it more impossible. It just made it more beautiful when the thing that they said was going to happen, that couldn’t possibly happen, happened.
Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itselfis now streaming on Hulu.
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