It Wasn't Just About Doing Tricks. It's

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 Have Always Been Interested In Pushing Magic Forward.

A Few Years Later, When I Was Still Going To These Meetings, I Was Also "second-acting" Every Broadway Show [walking In With The Crowd After Intermission]. I Snuck In To See Grease With John Travolta In Kind Of A Secondary Part And Adrienne Barbeau Playing Rizzo, Into Pippin, Hung Out With Ben Vereen And Bob Fosse. It Was An Amazing Time For A Teenager.

I Went To Visit Frank Capra, One Of My Idols, And Did A Kind Of Judd Apatow Interview With Him. I Said, "i'd Like The Statue Of Liberty To Disappear, But I Want To Do It As A Lesson In Freedom, How Valuable Freedom Is And What The World Would Be Like Without Liberty." And Frank Capra Looked At Me And Said, "david, I Love Your Idea, But Here's What You're Going To Do. You're Going To Try And It's Not Going To Work; It's Not Going To Disappear." And I Said, "mr. Capra, I Can't Do That."

In Magic, It Takes Two Or Three Years For Me To Create A 5-minute Illusion For Me To Get It To The Level I Want.