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Lost Magic Decoded Premieres Tonight: Meet the Millionaires’ Magician Steve Cohen

Cultural Immersion, Culture, Pop Culture Travel, Travel News on October 18, 2012 10:44 am
Lost Magic Decoded Premieres Tonight: Meet the Millionaires’ Magician Steve Cohen

SK: You’ve said the bullet catch was the most difficult thing you’ve ever attempted. It definitely seemed that the mental preparation for such an intense trick was extremely difficult. Is there anything you’ve ever done that has been more difficult in your career?

SC: The two most difficult things I’ve ever done in my career was to perform a one-man solo show on stage at Carnegie Hall, which I did earlier this year, and the bullet catch. It was so important to me to get everything just right for both. You only get one chance to debut at Carnegie Hall, but I really could have died with the bullet catch. I will never attempt that stunt again. My life was seriously threatened during that performance, and looking back at it, it makes me cringe.

SK: Understandably. Speaking about being in Carnegie Hall, do you ever experience any kind of stage fright when you go on?

SC: I’ve done my current show over 3,000 times over the past 12 years at the Waldorf Astoria. When you’re a master of something you don’t feel fear anymore. You walk out relaxed, and it’s like breathing or riding a bike. The only time I feel fear is if I’m not prepared for something. And I think that is the reason most people feel uncomfortable in front of an audience is that they’re not truly prepared. They may have practiced a lot for their speech or their performance, but they haven’t done it enough times to feel truly relaxed and have mastered it.

Once you’ve truly mastered something there is no need for stage freight. You just go out and you know that you can accomplish what you need to do, and the audience senses that you are in control and they’re on your side.

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  • Usmc

    Bullet catch hoax…. At least have the bullet u caught in ur mouth to have rifling grooves on it….. So whack!!

  • jeff

    bullet catch LOL yes a bullet went into magazine but was not chambered, he never pulled the slide to load, so either there was a blank and something broke glass or was a real bullet but not the one signed and was aimed to miss you. rest of show was good but anyone that has used a gun will see right through that one.

  • Yawn

    Ugh the setups for these tricks are so over the top… I was hoping this show was something it isn’t… Surely not “decoded” more like hammed up to the extreme… Such filler… They could have fit more tricks in if it weren’t for the lengthy filler… Lets write on a blackboard all the people that failed at the magic bullet trick… I’d advise you not to do this its too dangerous! Please…..
    Fake audiences watching basic sleight of hand oohing and aching like they’ve never seen it before…. And yes I’m always the guy that says “this is what he did” and yes people hate that lol =)
    My cross to bear.

  • Usmc1

    u can see him holding the bullet in his lower left lip… Lol dudes a joke

  • magic billy

    the most convincing bullet catch’s are done with a black powder rifle or revolver, not a Glock 19. anyone who has ever operated a firearm know that round must be chambered before it can be fired. bullets are “Swaged” down the barrel anything drawn the bullet with a sharpie is going to turn into a messy black smudge if anything. swaging describes the process of the bullet entering the barrel and being squeezed to conform to the rifling. Most firearm bullets are made slightly larger than the inside diameter of the barrel, so that they are swaged to engage the rifling and form a tight seal upon firing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jay.mort.94 Jay Mort

    Catch a bullet is just to easy to bunk. It involved: misdirection (M), sleight of hand (SoH), suspense (S), and smoke and mirrors (S&M).
    1. S: Magician psychs up crowd pointing out EMTs, talking about danger, and acting nervous (an NYC crowd who probably couldn’t tell a glock from a flintlock anyways). This makes the crowd anxious and frightened making it more likely they will not think clearly or be as attentive.
    2. S/S&M: The shooter shows off the power of the glock, insinuating it has 1 round in the gun (a lie, there is actually 2, a live round and either a dud or more likely a less than leathal rubber bullet), by firing the pistol at a vase. Neatly destroying it. (observant onlookers would see the glock’s slide not locking back in the open position which indicates an empty magazine, which means there was another round in the mag: the dud/rubber bullet). This action further psychs the crowd with the visceral display of destruction, the loud noise, overpreasure of the expanding gas in an enclosed area (likely the reason for an indoor trick), and the brass clinking on the ground.
    3. S&M: Magician has a dummy round initialed by an audience member.
    4. SoH: Magician palms the initialed round after showing it to the camera and ‘confirming’ it is the real one. Magician replaces it with a pre-marked dummy round (the audience and those at home can’t tell it isn’t the real one as from even a small distance marks encircling a cylindrical object become almost impossible to identify, and the magician does not detail the round afterwards.
    5. S&M/M: Magician hands ‘fake’ dummy round to shooter who places it into ‘empty’ mag he removed from the gun.(further insiuating he previously had only one bullet in the gun, again a lie – the blank/rubber bullet is still in the gun’s chamber) While everyone is watching the shooter loading the ‘fake’ bullet into the magazine and insert it into the gun the magician removes the initialed bullet from the palmed cartridge, repalming the bullet and now empty case. (observant viewers like Jeannie will notice the shooter never racks the pistols slide, without racking the slide the single bullet he just put in the magazine would never make it into the barrel of the gun and thus could not be fired, doubly obvious as the camera doesn’t leave the gun until it is fired again)
    6 S/S&M/SoH/M: Magician walks towards center stage. Taking time to look nervous and inspect glass pane (more to get people to not pay attention to the shooter not chambering the ‘fake’ round). He gets into position, reaches in his pocket to remove a hankerchief (and at the same time deposit the palmed cartridge case). Suspense builds as people are afraid for him.
    7. S&M: Hankerchief dropped, the shooter fires. The rubber bullet flies through the glass and strikes the magician in the side chest (where the shooter was aiming instead of his mouth).
    8. S&M/SoH/S: Magician takes the hit (which hits like a paintball) turns his back to all the viewers, while back is turned puts the palmed initialed bullet into his mouth.
    9. S&M/S/M: While writhing around spits out bullet. People are too worried and/or stunned to pay any attention to the shooter (who still has the ‘fake’ bullet in the gun, who likely puts the gun away for “safety reasons”). Magician is taken away to the hospital obviously (though not really) injured, making people overly worried about him to cloud their judgement and leaves them to be amazed by the initialed bullet they saw him spit out.
    10 S&M: Magician shows TV viewers images of what he claims is from a glass shard popping a few blood vessels. Unfortunately no lacerations are visible, nor are there any stitches from the operation he would have to go through to remove the glass from his body. Instead what we see is a bruise from blunt force trauma (this is why it is likely he used a rubber bullet) very similar to the injuries one would see from a game of paintball. (A glass shard would cause a laceration on the skin where it entered and likely only cause small amounts of internal bleeding in its local area, blunt force trauma creates multiple internal hemerages over the impact area without any skin lacerations, which bleed significantly into the surrounding tissue i.e. a bruise.)
    So there you have it, how this guy did the bullet catch trick.