David Blaine gets his mind blown by magic too

25:09David Blaine gets his mind blown by magic too

For decades, David Blaine has been stunning audiences with his unbelievable card tricks, illusions, and extreme stunts that challenge both his mind and his body.

He's been buried alive, trapped in ice and suspended in the air while sealed inside a box for 44 days. But in his new series, Do Not Attempt, Blaine is the one who's left speechless as he travels the globe taking in extraordinary feats by some of the world's greatest masters.

"It's an amazing chance to highlight these performers or these experts," Blaine tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "Being able to meet the most incredible people that have worked for thousands of hours on these skills that are, to me, as close to magic as it gets because they've put the invisible work in — the countless thousands of hours to be able to do this thing that shouldn't be possible."

In South Africa, Blaine meets Neville Wolmarans, a reptile rescuer who works with black mambas, the deadliest species of snake in Africa. Untreated, a black mamba's bite has a fatality rate of 100 per cent. Together, Blaine and Wolmarans get inside a small enclosure with six black mambas, where they must remain calm until the snakes eventually lose interest in them.

"Sitting in the small enclosure with six black mambas was absolutely the scariest feat of my entire career — of my life — by a long shot," Blaine says. "It took me a day and a half just to even decide that I was capable of doing it …  but I believed in [Neville] and I trusted him. And I listened to exactly what he said."

But even a daredevil like Blaine has his limits. In India, a place that he says changed him as a magician, he witnessed seemingly impossible acts beyond his imagination.

"They were putting these dull rapiers into their eyes and pulling their eyes out of their heads this far," Blaine says. "I called my optometrist friend and I said, 'Wait, is this possible? Can this be done?' And he went, 'No, they've been doing this for many years, they've slowly built up the ability, and if you try to do it, you're going to degenerate your vision immediately.'"

Rather than showcasing tricks and illusions, Blaine says the type of magic in Do Not Attempt is "the real stuff" — incredible feats that look like magic.

"When I was about 18 years old, I saw a magician," he says. "[He] would eat a string and he'd pull it out of his stomach. All of the other magicians just thought it was cool magic, but I knew there was something real about it. It wasn't, to me, just a trick. So I convinced him to show me how he does it. And the secret to his method was even more interesting to me."

[It's] as close to magic as it gets because they've put the invisible work in.- David Blaine

According to Blaine, the hidden secret behind magic is just slow, meticulous hard work.

"When I went from five minutes and 59 seconds of holding my breath to six minutes, that one second, it took me a year," he says. "I kept blacking out underwater and then all of a sudden I had a revelation and then I just blew past it."

As for what's next, Blaine is considering taking a one-year break from performing stunts. That's partly due to the fact that he has a 14-year-old daughter now, and partly due to his own superstition.

"Harry Houdini, who's one of my favourite magicians that ever lived, he died at 52 and I am very superstitious," Blaine tells Power. "Next year I turn 52, so I'm probably going to take a nice break and just see if I'm OK, and then maybe I'll continue. I don't know."

The full interview with David Blaine is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with David Blaine produced by Lise Hosein.