Exclusive: Backstage interview with Criss Angel as Believe is moved to Halloween

By Robin Leach

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | 4:55 p.m.

It’s just two days after Cirque du Soleil officially moved the opening of Mindfreak magician Criss Angel’s show back to a definite Halloween Eve premiere on Oct. 31. I sit in the star’s dressing room backstage at the new Luxor theater. Criss is stretched out on the floor, having just eaten a small filet mignon and vegetable dinner after rehearsals. He has an hour before a massage and another full run-through of the new Believe show. He’s relaxed, in a fun mood and fully at ease revealing for the very first time secrets of the new $150-million illusions. He promises later to give me a full backstage tour, and to introduce some of the cast and show me the costumes. He moves to sit side by side with me on his leather couch -and my tape recorder is switched on:

Robin Leach Now that next Friday, Sept 26, is definite for the start of previews and Halloween, October 31, will be the gala premiere can you explain why all the delays during rehearsals? Clear up the awful rumors please!

Criss Angel: The reason for the delays was not anything to do with our creative process. The Monte Carlo resort had a roof fire earlier this year. We were in the process of getting permits and ensuring we followed the guidelines set out by the fire department. We respect all of them, but they changed the guidelines and made the public protection much stricter. We had to do redo parts of the theater. We had to get more money, a huge amount of money to change what was approved prior to that-and then changed again. We respect the fire dept. but it did eat into the time and budget. So because of that we didn’t have the five weeks we actually wanted to do previews in the theater to do what we had to do with our first live audiences experiencing it. Until the new codes were in writing and the architects followed through it took a lot more time than anybody envisioned. If we would have had the initial timeline scheduled in the theater, we would not have been a day late. Artistically and creatively we were rehearsing in a warehouse but there is only so much we could do there. Once we got into the theater, it still wasn’t done. This show is the most detailed complicated show ever mounted. Even more complicated with how it works than KA.

I wanted everything new, unique and different. I wasn’t going to do something that has been done before. This was my dream, my creation 15 years ago when I didn’t have a pot to pee in and no one would give me the time of day, and I sat there on my computer writing this as a business plan. I couldn’t get anyone to see my vision. Everybody told me t is so much easier to so something safe and proven than going down uncharted territories. I never gave up though on the idea and eventually I was fortunate enough to get a company -- the greatest show company in live entertainment, Cirque du Soleil and owner-founder Guy LaLiberte saying “I get it.”

When Cirque got involved it was no longer “I” -- it became “we.” They took the ‘we’ to a whole different level. Cirque could not do the show without me, nor could I have done it without them. We need each other.

I believe in giving a 110 percent. I am doing 4,600 performances over the next 10 years. Each performance is the most important performance for me. To the public, which will never be in a room together ever again, it will always be like my first performance. A week Friday we are going to do the best job we can do, and five weeks later by Oct 31, the show itself will be even smoother and better. You need an audience to know what works and love the things that we spent all the money on. We expect a big reaction for one thing but may not get it and the thing we think is a throw away gets the big reaction we want. We need to have that feedback. Also for the previews there are some elements that are so complex we have prototypes and those might be used on the 26th until the real thing is ready for October 31st. The dancers that we have in the show, the cast, the crew and I will be giving 120 percent and I think for people to see this show in that stage, they will still be wildly entertained and they actually see its final evolution.

“Cirque told me that all of this was true for KA and I know it was also for Siegfried and Roy. KA was the longest, six months before it was finalized. Siegfried and Roy's show was delayed three months in the previews process. We think we have a good show, we think we are ready. The audience may say yeah you have a good show, but one little part isn’t -– and that gives us the time to improve it for opening night.

RL: Let’s go back to how it all began 15 years ago when you first drafted this. How is it updated?

CA: The illusions element … 90 percent of the illusions are from as far back as 15 years, some 10 years and it took that long and NASA to be able to bring it to fruition, What we did in garbage bag scale then couldn’t be executed all those years ago but now it can be. Our visions were ahead of the technology to make it possible. All of the characters -- Kayala, Crimson, Lucky the Rabbit --those are all the same. What Serge brought to the table made us change things and come up with a brand-new way to do it even beyond my imagination. Serge took it and weaved it together. It becomes this cohesive experience. It takes you on a ride, starts off in the beginning, and brings you back and you feel like you have been through this journey. It really lifts your spirits and it is very fulfilling. You feel a sense of completion. Serge has been able to do that. I have been so caught up in the micro of the minutia and he could see the flaws from the beginning. He didn’t know me for 15 years so we would talk about it in great detail. He told me he wanted to see the pure wonderment in that 5 -year-old boy onstage and challenge you and me with things that go beyond Mindfreak. If people are fans of Mindfreak, they are going to be so excited with Believe. They are actually going to see those illusions that people think can only happen with trick photography. For the skeptics that think it is BS and it can’t be done live they will believe too because the illusions go beyond what I have done in anything before.

RL: So without giving away secrets explain what NASA contributed.

CA: I cannot say.

RL: What was the space -break through with NASA that enabled you to do this.

CA: I can’t say. I can only say NASA.

RL: So something that NASA discovered in outer-space you are using?

CA: Something they utilize for their space shuttle is also something that is utilized in the show. You cannot see this anywhere, nor can it ever be copied because it is so technologically advanced - the only two people that have some of this technology are this show and NASA. That is a true statement.

RL: Explain to me the fine line you walk in the show of where illusion and reality meet.

CA: I don’t want to say too much, I want the audiences to experience it in a virgin state but I can say I love to take people, put them on a track, take them on a journey and when they don’t see it coming, go in a completely different direction.

RL: There are still elements of danger in this show and you promised your mother you would never put your life in harms way again. So how have you reconciled that and how dangerous is this show?

CA: I would say this show is as or more dangerous than anything I have done in my career. This is because I don’t do a “one off.” I have to do this 10 times a week, 42 weeks a year, for 10 years. This show is so physically and mentally demanding. It is so inherently dangerous. I have a test coil that is 6 million volts of electricity that I did in my first season where I got struck by lightening. They thought I had permanent nerve damage to my foot. We’ve recreated that and it is in the show. I am hanging over the audience; there are fire blasts that create illusions. I am dealing with a lot of new things. You will see the craziest levitations that have ever been attempted -- right there amidst the audience. This is not a conceited statement -- it is a confident statement. I have had 15 years to evolve this. We have the best team in the world to assemble this vision. There are a lot of technically challenging things. If I am a hair late it could be bad.

The process was more about challenging myself and Cirque to go into uncharted territories to really put it all together. I think Serge hit the nail on the head with a lot of things you asked him, but I would add, I think we have done a lot of things and completely invented a new format for the art of illusion. You see any performance on the Strip, it is ‘you set up a trick,’ a beginning, middle, end, like a vignette, It is like that variety show format. Our format is different. The goal for our show was to be so revolutionary that it will blow your mind. I think that more than anything it is not how something works, it is how you feel when you watch it. It is the magical emotion. When you have that emotional connection with the audience, you can make people happy, sad. When you can connect on that level, you have something more. You have someone feeling something from the most primitive, organic place. I think for us, that was the goal, we wanted to make people cry, go out and go wild and the show takes us to so many different places, different worlds. You have seamless melting, revolutionary worlds and everything I do is in the open, it is live, it is above you and it is behind you- and not just on the stage in front of you.

Wade Robson, who just won an Emmy, has done an amazing job with the choreography and the character development. You have Serge, amazing observations, and Michael Curry -- each in their own right brilliant. They could have all just put something there, but they realized they had the opportunity to change the perception of magic like Cirque did for the circus. They have now reinvented magic. Everybody came with their best game, individually and collectively. You have all of these art forms and disciplines coming together to bring people on this roller coaster emotional experience. It will definitely make audiences reflect on their own lives when they’ve watched it.

The story line to the show is not so obvious and apparent in the dialogue. It is in symbols, it is in tableaus, and it is in the poetry of what is happening. For people that want to see the most incredible revolutionary illusions but don’t want to scratch the surface, it is all there. If people want to be blown away and scratch the surface and see how it ties into the Wizard of Oz, or Alice in Wonderland and how we leave little things, clues, throughout the show, they are going to come back time and again to recognize it all. . It is almost as ‘the more you see it, the more questions’ you have. We did that because we wanted to layer it and be rich with substance. There is more to everything than meets the eye.

RL:One of the acts is titled "Paparazzi" -– is that a love hate relationship with the press?

CA: No. I love the press; I even like the people that don’t like me. If it wasn’t for those people, no one would know who I was and I wouldn’t have a gig. Basically in the show there is an autobiographical element. We have different things in the show that tips its hat to trials and tribulations in my personal life that are reflected in these images. When you are on the stage, if the cast does not understand the intent, how is the audience expected to understand. There has to be a motivation, something that inspires that moment. This allows me to get into places in my head, maybe over my father when he died. It allows me to get there and it is the same kind of emotion and to take the audience into that and feel that.

RL: Is the tornado that emanates from your mouth and surrounds the audience still in the show?

CA: Yes it is another interpretation, but yes.

RL: Oct 31st and we know your connection to Houdini, was that meant to be?

CA: I was a proponent for opening on Halloween for as long as I can remember. Especially because “believe’ was Houdini’s code word and because he was one of my biggest inspirations. It celebrates Houdini’s death, but also is the day to become something else.

RL: You sit just about five weeks from the gala opening. How do you feel before that curtain goes up?

CA: By Halloween this show will be where I have always dreamed it would be. It will be 100 percent ready to go, no excuses. I am incredibly confident, what you put in is what you get out and I work everyday 15 hours a day. I am confident not only for my performance but we also have the best dancers in the world. We have amazing people that elevate the experience to another level and we are all excited to go.