EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MINDFREAK CRISS ANGEL DICES WITH DEATH IN ESCAPE FROM EXPLODING BUILDING—THE MOST DANGEROUS STUNT HE’S EVER ATTEMPTED
Mindfreak magician Criss Angel doesn’t want to even think of how much extra insurance his Cirque du Soleil partners have just taken out on him.
“That’s more frightening than death,” he told me. “I’m not in fear of death, but I know they’ve bought a lot of extra insurance. I’ve no idea how much and quite frankly I don’t want to know.”
He’s about to take a whirlwind round-trip flight to Florida to scope out the Clearwater location of his first ever live escape from an imploding building rigged with explosives.
Criss told me in an exclusive interview: “We’d originally planned it to be for the opening of Season 4 of Mindfreak on A&E, but the Cirque rehearsal schedule in the new Luxor theater got delayed and played havoc with the schedule.”
So on tomorrow night’s 10 p.m. debut (WED) he’ll walk on water out at Lake Mead for the 1-hour premiere episode. “We’re not out of the woods on that yet either,” he laughed explaining that the live Florida explosion will now be next Wednesday night as was exclusively first revealed here in Luxe Life.
He said, “I will be placed in the bucket of a fire truck and placed on the 7th-storey balcony of a 9-storey building. The stairs will have been removed from the first two floors so when the dynamite goes off it will implode on itself. I will be manacled to the balcony and visible throughout to both the TV cameras and to the loyal fans that will be able to watch it from a safe distance. I will have less than four minutes to escape. I will not know any of the challenges I will face because nobody has ever done this before live from a building being blown up. I’ve got to escape, race up to the roof, jump on the rope dangling from a helicopter and fly off to safety. “That’s the plan, quite frankly anything could go wrong. Its live—no rehearsal, no safety net. It could kill me. It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done and 4,600 tons of concrete will implode whether I’m in it or not.
“I always wanted to do this kind of thing live so I can prove for once and for all to the skeptics that what you see is what you get. It’s interesting to say the least, but the cement blocks and implosion should ramp up the theater of it all. You will see me live on the balcony. This time there will not be a cover on me. You will watch me pick my way out of the shackles as the clock ticks. You will see me escape and run for the roof. It’s the only way I can get out before it all collapses. It will be a legitimate escape and as the first magician to be completely exposed while doing it certainly pushes the envelope of ultimate illusions. I am excited and passionate about it, and I love explosives so I have to believe there is nothing in this that will cause me to be afraid of dying.”
Criss told me that this season he would also do alternative versions of two episodes that the A&E cable network banned and forbid him to film.
“The A&E censors stopped me shooting a gun and catching the bullet in my teeth in a mental roulette illusion. Firing a gun on real television is forbidden because we have younger loyals watching. So we have compromised and this time around I will catch a nail in my mouth shot from a high-powered nail gun. I also go on a road trip with my friend Sully Erma from the Godsmack rock group. We take off for Boulder City to do a demonstration that wound up with in tears crying. All I will tell you about it is that its one of the best illusions in my entire career and was an excellent diversion from the norm.
“But if A&E bans any more of my illusions with TV rules I have told them it would be my last season, I’m done. I’ll have 90 episodes under my belt with Season 4, the most television ever achieved by any other magician on earth,” he says proudly. “I’d like to make it to a 100th episode next year in Season 5, but as an artist I have a real problem about them getting involved in censorship of artistic freedoms.”
Hard to believe that seven years ago Criss was both unknown and broke. He persuaded his mom to borrow $360,000 from a mortgage on the family home so he could fulfill his dream to mount an off-Broadway show. Originally he got a 12-week run that stretched onto 600 performances and then the 2004 move to Las Vegas to begin Mindfreak and the long preparation of this Septembers upcoming Cirque show Believe, named to honor the great Houdini and the codeword he left his wife upon his death.
Since starting Mindfreak he has levitated in the light atop the Luxor, walked down the side of the building, flown across the Nevada desert suspended on wire and four large fishhooks in his back, from a helicopter, set himself on fire and encased himself in concrete. A&E claims nearly 3 million viewers—an all-time record—watched its most viewed show with Criss from the Luxor.
Tomorrow we’ll continue our interview with Criss with some first-ever revelations about his new $100 million Cirque du Soleil Believe show opening this September at Luxor. Then tomorrow night (WED) Criss will host a screening party at the Cathouse ultra louinge and restaurant in the Luxor for the premiere episode of the new 4th season, providing he returns in time from his scope-look at the Florida building. The clock ticks on the one-week countdown to next Wednesday’s attempt to escape before the building blows him up and crushes him under the tangled concrete!