Anna Daniels
It sounds like a bit, but if it is, the duo have been consistent about it. In fact, Teller — who apparently does speak very well — has told the same story himself. The “rough environments” Jillette was referring to? Frat houses.
“I was playing fraternity parties at Amherst College, where I went. And I am a small man of not particularly imposing proportions or voice,” Teller recalled in an interview with NPR. “And if I had tried to assert myself over a room full of drunken kids groping their dates and drinking beer, they would not have paid any attention to me. So I found that if I turned off all the lights except for a few lawn spotlights that I carried with me and put them on me, and then did creepy things like swallowing razor blades… I found that when I did that sort of thing, they paid attention to me in a way that if I had tried to assert myself over them, they wouldn’t have. It sort of undercut any kind of heckling.”
Teller went on to say that although he’s not the only magician to utilize silence as part of their act, he feels that the way in which he does it is unique. “A lot of people who don’t speak onstage in magic blast the audience with music that is loaded with all sorts of emotions. I think that’s cheating,” he said. “And by stripping away music, by stripping away speech, there is a level of intimacy that I feel with the audience that is deep. It’s very deep.”
Written by: Looper
