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 PCM's
Kristyn Clarke had the recent opportunity to chat with comedian
and magician Justin Kredible. Justin is a regular correspondent
on the "Rachel Ray" show and is a crowd favorite at
colleges and events around the country. He will soon be appearing
on Disney's "The Suite Life On Deck" and will embark
on a fall tour visiting college campus across the country. To
keep up-to-date with Justin Kredible please visit his
Official
Site !
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Q: You certainly
seem to be quite the busy guy these days, recently being named
entertainer of the year, Congrats on that by the way!
Justin Kredible: Thank you very much!
Q: What is new in the world
of Justin Kredible? What is going on these days?
J.K: Even though the summer is kind of crazy
busy, it does not have the same break neck pace that I have
in the spring and in the fall when I am on college tours.
My mantra for the summer is balance and I am taking a little
break from being on the road.
Q: It is always important
to take some time for a little R&R!
J.K: Exactly!
Q: To help our site readers
get to know you a little better, how did you first develop
an interest in comedy and magic? How supportive has your
family been with your career choice?
J.K: Family has been amazingly supportive,
I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I see and
mentor a lot of young magicians and it's funny how a kid
gets into magic. At lot of times, at least for me, when
I was tweleve or thirteen, those important junior high years,
I didn't really fit in with the cool kids, I wasn't the
popular guy or the successful athlete, I wasn't the ladies
man so, I discovered magic and through magic you are able
to sit down and read a book and through a solitary experience
learn to do something amazing and then through the power
of the tricks you just learned become accepted by all of
these groups. It is like a back door enterance, but being
that cool magic guy. I became the cool guy by not being
the cool guy, it is kind of ironic.
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Q: What trick
took you the longest to master?
J.K: Card tricks are the most difficult.
Everyone probably knows one or two simple card tricks that
maybe their uncle pulled on them, but the real hard-cord
slight of hand tricks that really fry someone's brain are
the things that take a really long time to master. I remember
being in high school and secretly under my desk while I
was supposed to be taking notes, practicing fanning cards
and that kind of practice and repetition is the basics for
all the magic I do today. It is hard to learn magic when
you are grown up and busy, but when you are kid and you
have the time that's when you really learn what you learn.
Q: I see you have a guest-starring
appearance coming up on Disney's "The Suite Life On
Deck". How did that come about and what are you going
to be doing on the show?
J.K: This is one of the coolest things I
have ever done! I went to college and I always wanted to
be an actor, so what happened here was kind of the best
of both worlds colliding. They needed a magician who could
act so, I was on the road and I sent them an audition tape
that I actually shot on my Flip camera that I had screwed
into the top of a lamp in a hotel room in Connecticut after
a show. It was a very unlikely situation to book a Disney
show, but it worked. I think they saw what they were looking
for right there and the next week I was in LA, it was kind
of mind blowing.
Q: That's awesome! So, do
you think it may lead to some other openings in that area
for you?
J.K: For a long time now I have been trying
to explain to people this concept of trying to use magic
in a TV series or a sitcom. The character may be a magician
and magic may be happening but he's not there to be doing
magic, his magic is kind of happenstance and I've never
really been able to describe it, but now since that is exactly
what I did on The Suite Life I will be able to just point
to this episode and say here's what I am talking about and
let's go from there.
Q: That is great idea! Personally,
I think the comedy and the magic go hand in hand. What made
you decide to blend the two together?
J.K: It was a trial and error process. A
lot of times as a kid, growing up, you try to emulate other
magicians you see so, when I was a kid you had David Copperfield
and Lance Burton. Copper field had the macho leather jackets
and motorcycles, and I discovered when I tried to imitate
that it looks ridiculous especially cause I was fourteen
years old. I was not the macho illusionist! My next idol
was Lance Burton who is kind of like the elegant tuxedo
and tails kind of magician and I tried that for a while,
which was great. I would compete in magic contests and do
really well and make doves appear, but bottom line it was
like you are still a sixteen year old kid wearing a tuxedo;
that is not normal. It took this trial and error process
to gradually find out that I don't really need to try to
be someone else, I can just take who I am and pick and choose
traits of myself and let that be what comes out on stage.
I created this persona that is just an exaggeration of who
I am as a real person and that ended up being what really
rang true for me.
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Q: If you were
not doing magic or comedy, what is one profession you would
like to attempt?
J.K: Accountant
Q: No! Really? (laughs)
J.K: Totally kidding (laughs) I actually
always thought I could be a good lawyer because on stage
I always yap and yap and I am also a master of deception
and that's important in the law practice, no offense to
them, but I always thought I could be a good lawyer. Also,
as a kid I always wanted to be the host of The Tonight Show.
That is still like an end game kind of thing for me, some
sort of thing in that genre. I meaning having Johnny Carson
and Jay Leno as my idols, you know, magic was kind of my
foot into the door of the entertainment world but doing
what they do and being an interviewer, doing a one man show
with the sketches and the monologues that is where I really
saw myself as a kid.
Q: Well, you are certainly
on your way there! What is an experience like at one of
your live shows?
J.K: If someone has never seen me before
and they are going because they see the posters or they
read in the newspaper that some magician dude named Justin
Kredible is coming, think that first off a lot of people
have this idea of what a magic show is going to be thinking
it is going to be someone a little cheesy that they might
not necessarily identify with who is going to be showing
them how cool and amazing they are and fool them with things
that they don't know how they do. What people are caught
off guard with about me is that I am self-deprecating, it's
a really cool show, but I think they are naïve to a
magician being as edgy and funny as I tend to be, I try
to supply a good mix of comedy and magic. A lot of magicians
try to be funny, but I really put a lot of work into my
comedy and my writing so it can stand on its own. Magic
wise what they can expect is definitely to see some awesome
crazy badass magic tricks but they are not presented in
a way that I am trying to fool you and alienate you, I try
to make it more about the experiences. We are all hanging
together for this hour so let's make it about the journey.
Amazing tricks will happen, that's my job, I have to do
that, but in the meantime let me entertain you and let me,
let you into my world and let it become less about fooling
you and more about just pure entertainment
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Q:
Is there one type of crowd that is easier to perform for than
others? I know you seem to be very popular in the college circuit?
J.K: Yes, I love doing the colleges and I
love that audience because I don't have to censor my shows.
I don't have to do what corporate America wants to see, I
mean if I was doing a business conference I don't have to
be uber family friendly but I mean I am never dirty, but sometimes
college students they really want to see an intelligent show.
When a lot of people think about magic they think about someone
performing for kids and performing for kids is actually the
hardest thing in the world because kids are brutally honest.
If they are watching a trick and they figure it out, they
are not going to sit there and just whisper to their friend
they figured it out, they will yell it right to you! They
will totally call you out on the spot. Kids are definitely
the most challenging but also the most rewarding. There is
nothing like rocking a room full of kids because kids watch
magic a little differently as opposed to the college student
who is watching it and kind of looking for the secret, the
kids as long as everything is smooth and well put together,
they enjoy just believing in magic for a little bit.
Q: Sometimes I think I want
to go back to that time period sometimes!
J.K: Totally! Back to when the tooth fairy
was around, whimsy and mystery. It is beautiful time. That
is kind of the illusion I try to present and it hard to try
to get back to the era of childhood.
Q: Do you have a trick of
yours that is an audience favorite? Or do you have a favorite
to perform?
J.K: In my college shows I do this trick that
is all under the pretense of me doing a game show where I
give someone in the audience a chance to win some money but
obviously nothing is really how it seems. It turns out to
be this thing where someone's hundred dollar bill gets shredded
and that is where the acting comes in because they really
think that I messed up. I love to let people think that something
happened that really wasn't supposed to and then it makes
it a very real life experience. It is always fun watching
some big macho dude from the audience who wanted to win some
money come up on stage and think that he just lost his hundred
bucks and seeing what he'll do. Sometimes he will just cower
back to his seat which is funny and then we bring him back
up and let him know that it was a joke. Then some other times
they will not leave the stage, so using my show to produce
real reactions is just great. In the end of course the hundred
dollar bill reappears again in one piece in some miraculous
location which is the big pay-off but it is always fun creating
situations where people do not behave like they thought they
were going to behave.
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Q:
What has been the most memorable moment from your career so
far?
J.K: The Suite Life has definitely been a
great career accomplishment for me. Getting a chance to do
that and works with such amazing professional people and go
to set everyday, it really put me in my spot to do my very
best everyday. For the past several years I do this show in
Tucson, AZ at the Gaslight Theater and my grandparents live
in Tucson as well so it has been an opportunity for the past
five or six years for my grandparents who are in their eighties
to come and see my show and see what I do and more importantly
see me evolve as an entertainer. That has always been really
meaningful to me!
Q: I see that you are quite
the fan of Twitter! How do you feel about social networking
sites to promote shows and connect with fans?
J.K: I am total fan! For me it is a chance
to try out new material for instance if I am out and about
and have a random thought or a silly joke, it is a chance
to Tweet it out there and get instant feedback on it. It shows
me whether people think it was funny or it was stupid and
I don't know what I am talking about. It is instant feedback
for your hair-brained ideas.
Q: What is the best way for
fans to keep up-to-date with you?
J.K: I have a mailing list that I do once
a month that I put a lot of time and effort into and you can
sign up for the mailing list right on my website at
www.justinkredible.com
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Also, Facebook and Twitter are things that I manage myself,
I know a lot of people are like "Oh that must not be
you", but I do manage them myself because I truly feel
it is more authentic that way. That is a great way to keep
in touch.
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Q:
You also have a DVD available, correct?
J.K: Yes, I do have a DVD called "Street
Kred" which was such a cool passion project for me because
for years I wanted to put out a DVD where I teach magic tricks
as my way to spread the love of magic and it is such a cool
thing that you don't have to be a magician to know a couple
cool tricks in real life. They come in handy in the workplace,
at business meetings, and definitely in social environments
as tricks are great social icebreakers. I wanted to give people
some ammunition in their magic repertoire. I also shot a pretty
funny half hour mock-u-drama which is like a day in the life
of Justin Kredible, kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing about
what would happen in a magician's daily life. You can buy
that on the site as well!
Q: Very cool! Is there any
final message or comment you would like to share with our
site readers?
J.K: Right now I feel that I am at a time
in my life where one of the most important things to me is
being out on the road and traveling for my live show so I
encourage people to check out my tour schedule and come see
a show!
Q: What kind of touring do
you have planned for the rest of the summer into the fall?
J.K: This summer I have some Texas dates happening,
and then I am doing lots of shows on the East Coast. I will
also gear up for a fall tour which will begin in mid-August
through October and will include a smattering of colleges
all over the place. The Suite Life episode will air on August
14th so it will be fun hitting the road on the heels of that
and whether college students want to admit it, the show is
a guilty pleasure!
Q: We will definitely direct
our site readers to stay tuned! I like to end my interview
with a word association, when you hear the words "Pop
Culture" what is the first thing that comes to mind?
J.K: Twitter! Better yet: Twitter-cadabera!
Q: That works (laughs)
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