If you are looking for a true Magic Mike, look no further than Michael Carbonaro. The 34-year-old actor/comedian/magician has been dropping jaws with his on-the-street hidden camera magic show, The Carbonaro Effect. The hit show has just been renewed on TruTV for a third season, plus two original specials, all to air in 2017.
Carbonaro is also on the next leg of his nationwide tour that brings him to The Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg Dec. 29. Before he conjures himself up in Tampa Bay for a little hocus pocus, Carbonaro chatted with Watermark via the psychic friends network for a little bippity boppity boo. Oh, ho, ho, it’s magic.
Watermark: When did you first develop your love for magic?
Michael Carbonaro: I began my love of magic with wanting to be a special effects artist as a kid, a make-up man. I loved monsters and make-up and Halloween, and I would buy all the things for my special effects from a magic shop. That’s sort of what opened my eyes and I started watching people do magic. I loved performing so I picked up magic in the beginning as a way to do special effects live.
At what point did you decide you wanted to make a career out of it?
At 13, I really wanted to be a make-up artist. Then as I progressed through my teen years, I said, “You know I really think I like performing magic. I think I might just be a performing magician. ”So I went to college – I went to NYU really [carrying] that ambition that I’m just going to become the next great magician. I took as many theater classes as I possibly could, which is what I always recommend. I get a lot of parents and families who watch my show and they ask me, “What would you recommend for an up and coming magician?” I always tell them to take as many workshops and classes outside of magic that are just based around theater and performance. So in school, I just found my love for acting and doing stand-up comedy, and that’s where the two worlds of acting and magic melded together.
You are mostly known for your magic, but you do act and you have performed stand-up comedy. Does the passion for magic, acting and comedy all come from the same place?
Absolutely! I think it’s all magic. Directing is magic, acting is magic. It’s no wonder you find all of those passions grouped together in a magic shop. Everything from make-up and monsters to magic tricks and pranks and gags and secrets – all of those things that are kind of mysterious and magical live in that world.
You are Italian and from New York, and as someone who is half Italian from New York I know that Italian families from New York are very close and loving, but also nosey and in your business. What was it like for you coming out in that environment?
My mom kind of knew. She guessed early on, and it was just kind of a slow reveal versus an actual coming out. I did come out to my dad and that one surprised him. He didn’t suspect. You always hear these stories like, “Oh, we always knew,” but he didn’t. I get that a lot though; when people find out I’m gay they are usually surprised.
So which was a bigger shock for the aunts and the uncles and the grandparents: When you came out as gay or when you told them you wanted to do magic professionally?
[Laughs] Definitely gay. They had seen my magic tricks, so that wasn’t a shock. I told them that I was getting my own show, and they were like, “Yeah, we know, we know. We’ve seen your tricks everywhere.” So yeah, definitely being gay was the surprise.
The Academy of Magical Arts named you Magician of the Year in 2014. What was that call like for you?
Unbelievable. That was just four years after I made the move to Los Angeles from New York, and I had made the move to L.A. to focus on my acting career, not my magic. I thought I would be putting magic on the back burner by leaving New York and the theater scene there. I was making the move thinking it would be all Hollywood glitz and glamour. When I got to L.A., I immediately ended up getting connected with the Magic Castle and the Larson family and the Academy of Magical Arts. I started performing there and making so many magic friends, and I realized I was advancing my magic much faster than I had been in the last few years in New York. So it was an incredibly gigantic, shocking honor to get that call. It was an amazing thing.
Was that what led to the show, because 2014 is also the year that you began The Carbonaro Effect?
Actually, the show came about when I started performing on late night television. I did a bizarre act right when I moved to L.A.. It was one of my first big breaks. I got on Jimmy Kimmel and performed this really crazy act I do with shaving cream. If you haven’t heard of it or seen it, it’s the trick I am finishing the live act with there in Tampa Bay. I cover myself in shaving cream and sculpt myself into different characters and creatures, like a live magical transformation act. It’s really cool, and I did that on Jimmy Kimmel and that opened the doors for me in late night television. I got connected with The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and they set up a hidden camera magic segment on the show for me, and that is what launched my work into hidden cameras and magic, which is a wonderful blend of acting and magic where I got to do all the things I love to do: acting, comedy and magic. And back then, that was the most difficult question to answer: which one of these things do I want to focus on and do for a living, acting or magician? And I was like “Can I do both?” With this show I get to do both.
Speaking of acting, you were hilarious in Another Gay Movie, and you guest starred in everything from The Newsroom to iCArly. Will your fans get to see you in any upcoming projects? I know with the show and tour that that has been the focus.
Yeah, you’re right. The timeframe of the show still has me trying to regulate how to take a moment to breathe in this wild whirlwind. It’s incredible and wonderful and the show is all consuming. Just getting to tour and get back on the stage – I used to perform stage magic all the time before the show and it’s great to get back to that – so it’s just a matter of time. As long as I’m alive I will be doing some type of entertainment; I just consider myself an entertainer so whether it’s acting or magic or hosting or directing, I’ll be around.
Is this the first tour you have done since beginning the show?
This is the second leg of the first tour since the show. I started last year and I’ve performed in 35 different venues across the nation and I love it. I get to meet the fans and my people get to see me perform magic live. Obviously, on the show I’m pretending not to be a magician, and I’m lying and saying I’m not doing any magic tricks. I open the show saying, “Well, you all know I’m a magician, so now you can trust me 100 percent and I won’t have to lie this evening.” And of course everyone laughs, because they know all I’m going to do all night is lie to them [laughs]. It’s a great way for fans of the show to get to meet the goofball, comedian host Michael Carbonaro the magician. It’s almost like it’s the first time they are meeting me as a magician.
Which is more difficult: live magic where they know it’s magic or on the TV show, where part of the act is that they don’t know it’s a magic show?
The TV show, especially with our society and [how] everyone is very busy all the time. It’s very tough to get that right window of opportunity to have somebody engage with a stranger. That’s the whole premise of the show right there: Having someone engage with a stranger for long enough and focused enough to witness something happening. It can be a bit of a wrestling match to get their attention without coming off too strong and tipping them off that something is going on here.
What can expect to see at the show at The Mahaffey?
You will get a lot of audience participation, so people are going to come right up from the crowd to help with the magic. You are going to get lots of magic and loads of laughs and surprises, plus I cover myself in shaving cream. Bring the whole family.
