David Copperfield brings his magic to movies for 'Now You See Me 2'

By Amy Kaufman

June 10, 2016 4 AM PT

Reporting from Las Vegas — Is David Copperfield staring at me?

No. That’s ridiculous. He’s in the middle of performing a show for 740 people at the MGM Grand. I’m just so close to the stage that it’s probably difficult for him to avoid making eye contact with me. I mean, his publicity team seated my friend — a fellow journalist — and me so near the action that we can read the cue cards he has taped to the ground.

Everyone around us is really into this. I think I saw the lady next to me shed a tear after he dedicated an illusion to his late father. And there have already been a couple of standing ovations. This isn’t the place for two skeptical journalists. Do I look impressed enough? I’m smiling a lot, which is not my natural state. But I don’t think I can muster the shock and awe of some of these tourists.

Whoa: He just made a car appear, seemingly, out of thin air. I’m legitimately impressed. But OK, now I’m positive he’s looking at us. He’s looking at us at the end of every illusion! It’s like he’s trying to gauge our enthusiasm, or something. And my buddy isn’t clapping. At all.

Oh. My. God. Copperfield noticed he wasn’t clapping. Copperfield just looked at me, pointed at my friend, then mimicked a yawn. In the middle of his show! In front of the entire crowd!

If only I knew how to vanish into thin air.

A magical trek

I’ve just been picked up in a van and dropped off in front of a nondescript factory building about 10 minutes from the Vegas Strip. Copperfield comes outside to greet me in the parking lot. It’s very hot, and he is wearing all black.

For the last 13 years, he has performed 15 times a week at the MGM. I will be attending one of these performances the following evening, but first, I’m here to tour Copperfield’s International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts. That’s what the 59-year-old calls his private collection of over 80,000 magic artifacts, which includes Harry Houdini’s straitjacket, water torture chamber and mirror handcuffs.

He’s spent the last two decades — and hundreds of millions of dollars — amassing the collection, which is not open to the public. Tours are mostly reserved for other magicians or filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro and Louis Leterrier, the latter of whom directed “Now You See Me.” The magic heist flick — which took the industry by surprise when it grossed $351.7 million worldwide in 2013 — included an illusion inspired by one in Copperfield’s act. Accordingly, he was brought in as a co-producer on this weekend’s sequel, “Now You See Me 2,” whose screenplay he consulted on.

But more on that later. Copperfield is eager to begin the tour, which he clearly has down pat. No less than a minute after we’ve been introduced, he launches into a backstory that explains why this place exists.

“So, my particular contribution to magic is to combine magic with story,” he says. “And this is a story — my story.”

He points to a sign overhead that reads “Korby’s Men’s Shop.” That was the name of his parents’ clothing store in New Jersey, where he’d hang out as a boy — he was born David Seth Kotkin — practicing magic tricks and helping to stock the shelves. To pay homage to his late mother and father, he replicated the store in the museum, creating a kind of false entrance.

He instructs me to walk into the dressing room of the “store” and pull down on a tie. A door slides open and now we’re in what looks like a living room. There’s a big leather couch and a table with dozens of artifacts on it; these are items he’s recently won in an auction — at a cost of more than $300,000 — that have yet to be catalogued in the collection.

“As a storyteller,” he says, “this is part of how you can inspire other people. Yeah, I got a bunch of stuff. Islands. But I think these things are different. I have an obligation, with these things, to keep magicians’ stories going forward.”

And yes, by the way, Copperfield does have islands. The Islands of Copperfield Bay, otherwise known as Musha Cay, where he stays 10 weeks a year. The rest of the time, he rents out the plush Bahamas digs for $39,000 a day. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem got married there, he tells me. “On Pinterest, it’s one of the top 20 pinned places in the world,” he says.

Copperfield is rich. Forbes estimates his fortune to be $800 million, making him the highest-grossing entertainer behind only Oprah Winfrey. I know this because he tells me.

“I’m a magician, but on the Forbes list, I’m No. 20,” he says. “And that’s pretty good. Beyonce is not 20. I love her. But Tom Cruise, Beyonce — I’m doing as good, if not better than them with a magic show.”

Despite his financial success, it’s obvious that Copperfield wishes magic were more respected. He spearheaded the movement that led to Congressional Resolution 642, which would make magic recognized “as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.” In practical terms, the bill would allow money from artistic grants to go toward magic just like it goes toward painting, dance or music.

“The art form [of magic] is one that has done a lot of good,” he says. “It’s the snickering that makes me work so hard. ‘Oh, did your mom give you a ride home after your magic show?’ Or people making funny gestures mimicking me. I think that stuff is fun. This is not a story about David Copperfield fighting — well, isn’t the analogy ‘Star Wars’? Who are the fans of ‘Star Wars,’ classically? Nerds. But it makes a billion dollars. Mine is a similar situation.”

In fact, part of the reason Copperfield wanted to be involved with the “Now You See Me” franchise was because he thought the first film succeeded in helping to make magic “cool” again. The first film followed an elite group of magicians called the Four Horsemen who pull off elaborate stunts that often end with the crowd being showered with money. The sequel — which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo and newcomer Lizzy Caplan — follows the Horsemen as they jet around the world, trying to evade the FBI and still impress the public with their illusions.

Hollywood, at least, has certainly taken an interest in magic lately. Ridley Scott recently announced plans to make a movie about Los Angeles’ famed Magic Castle, which itself is in the process of being franchised to venues in China, the Middle East and Europe. And this week, the trades reported that Sacha Baron Cohen would star in “Mandrake the Magician,” an adaptation of a comic book strip about an illusionist who defeats evil through hypnosis.

“After ‘Now You See Me,’ so many people came up to me and said, ‘Oh, I went to see a magic show’ or ‘I went to the Magic Castle,’” recalls Leterrier a few weeks later over the phone. (He served as an executive producer on the sequel, which is directed by Jon M. Chu.) “It’s not just for nerds. When you do a magic trick well, it’s the best feeling — like telling the best joke in the world.”

Copperfield was unable to visit the set of “Now You See Me 2” during production because of his Vegas performance schedule. Instead, he spoke extensively to screenwriter Ed Solomon on the phone for a month, offering advice on how to make large-scale illusions seem plausible.

“We talked a lot about perspective — how no matter what seat you’re in in the house at his show, you get a different show,” recalls Chu, a director best known for “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” and “Step Up 2: The Streets.” “I thought that was really smart, and I realized what we do is very similar, except that we’re placing perspective on different things.”

Copperfield understands that as much as he is a caretaker of magic’s legacy, he is also an entertainer. Before we start the tour, he plays a promotional video for me that touts his 24 Emmy Awards (“More than ‘Saturday Night Live!’ More than ‘The Sopranos!’”) and the fact that he’s sold more tickets than Michael Jackson, Madonna and Elvis.

Copperfield lingers in the section where most of the Houdini stuff is. Sometimes, he admits, he gets in the water torture chamber, just to feel what it must have been like. “I’m a lot taller than him, so my head is kind of curled up,” he says. Houdini, of course, is one of Copperfield’s heroes as well — mostly because of the way he marketed himself.

“Why is he famous today?” he asks. “He’s famous because he did things people could really relate to. He wasn’t famous for doing magic. He was famous for getting out of things. That’s a very handy skill. I’d like to get out of that safe, or I’d like to be able to free myself from chains. Easy messaging. Great branding.”

We make our way through the remainder of the museum. Beyond all of the magic memorabilia, he has some funky entertainment items, like the masthead of the Black Pearl ship from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Shari Lewis’ actual Lamb Chop and a creepy room full of ventriloquism dummies.

As we near the exit, he hands me a signed photograph — my own piece of memorabilia. At the beginning of our three hours together, he’d asked me to pose for a photo in which it appeared he was causing me to levitate.

Straight out of the Houdini playbook.

Out of the blue

“Amy? It’s David Copperfield!”

I’ve been back from Sin City for a few days now, and he wants to check in. Out of the blue, he’s called me three times, and we’re now finally connecting. He’s eager to know: Have I seen “Now You See Me 2” yet? Did I get enough material during our interview? And what did I think of his show? You know, the one where he kept clocking my friend and me?

“It did affect me a little bit to see you getting excited and then looking over at your friend to say ‘Oh, this is so good,’ and seeing his reaction,” he admits. “But please thank your friend for me. Because that’s what inspires me and empowers me to be better. That’s the person that really changes my life.”

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