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| Penn Jillette and Teller met through a mutual friend in 1975, first performing as The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. (Supplied) |
By Velvet Winter
For half a century, Penn Jillette has made a career out of fooling people.
As one half of internationally renowned magic duo Penn & Teller, Jillette uses his looming frame and gift of the gab as a tool of misdirection as the real magic goes on behind the audience's point of focus.
The infamously outspoken performer has never confined himself to the magical arts, with a mile-long rap sheet that ranges from a cameo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to a story idea credit on a 2017 episode of Black Mirror.
At the end of the year, he will return to the silver screen alongside Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow for the A24 sports drama, Marty Supreme.
Perhaps his most surprising deviation from magic was the time his boss (on TV, at least) was Donald Trump. In 2012, just a few years before Trump announced his first run at the US presidency, Jillette was knocked out early in season five of Celebrity Apprentice. He returned for an All Stars season the next year, making it all the way to the finale.
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| Penn Jillette (third from the right) with his former on-screen boss Donald Trump and fellow Celebrity Apprentice All Stars contestants. (Getty: Stephen Lovekin) |
But Jillette has always gravitated back to the on-stage trickery that turned him and Teller into household names — whether that be through their long-running competition series, Fool Us, or as the longest-running headliner act in Las Vegas live-show history.
The pair are back in Australia to celebrate 50 years of performing together. ABC Entertainment caught up with Jillette to talk about tricks gone wrong, Bob Dylan and how to find hope in dark times.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Are today's audiences easier to fool than 50 years ago?
I don't think people are any easier, harder to fool. In the bigger picture, because of the internet, there's a lot more misinformation. We're not really part of that. The stuff we're dealing with is in a very, very honest way.
People always think that technology is a big component of magic, and it used to be 150 years ago but, with the stuff we do, there's nothing newer than electric lights in our methods.
In 50 years of Penn & Teller, what's the worst trick that has gone wrong?
I will brag, I will say that the thing I'm most proud of is that nobody, neither Teller nor I, or anybody working with us, has ever been injured. We've done the most "dangerous" tricks in all of magic, and we follow Houdini's rule. Houdini would not do anything more dangerous than sitting in his living room.
That being said, we did Saturday Night Live years and years ago, we did the water tank with Teller and it screwed up. We were right on the edge of not being able to finish it. We had a safety break that Teller could have used and, if he did, it would have destroyed the trick. Probably would have destroyed studio 8H with all of that water, too. That was pretty bad, but went OK.
Have you had to pull back on the more extreme tricks over the years?
The stuff we're doing is really hard. Teller and I have been working together for 50 years and, in the past 15 years, we have done, far and away, the craziest stuff we've ever done.
When Teller and I have our meetings, it's now to the point that if one of us says, 'This is a great trick I wrote that we'll be able to do easily' and the other guy goes, 'Don't bother'. If one of us says 'I don't know if this will work, I don't know if we can do it' that's what we're going for. I think because we have nothing to lose now, right?
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| "If you see the show we're doing now and compare it to shows we did in the 80s or 90s, it's much more crazy and much weirder," Jillette said. (Supplied) |
You're famously an obsessive Bob Dylan fan, what did you think of A Complete Unknown?
A lot of my friends pointed out the inaccuracies in the film. [But], I mean, every story you've ever told of anything that happened in your life is a lie, because you can't tell the story in the same amount of time it took.
That being said, I just loved it. I cried almost all the way through it. It was really powerful.
I saw the movie with my son, who is 18 and a big Timothée Chalamet fan. He just said, 'I don't give a f**k about Bob Dylan, I just like the movie'.
What I loved about it that the movie makes clear is Bob Dylan falls in love with smart, strong women who see through him and leave him because he's bulls**t. *laughs*
I actually just did a movie with Timothée Chalamet. His next movie that'll be out, it's called Marty Supreme.
Oh wow, did you talk about Bob Dylan?
Well, I was playing an antagonist, I was beating him up. So we tried to keep a little separate. We talked a little bit about Bob. It was very funny, because he said, 'I studied Bob Dylan for five years and you know a lot more than me'.
A couple of years ago, you told Vulture that you're a storyteller and storytellers are liars. What's the biggest lie you've been caught in?
I don't get caught, it's my job. I keep a diary and I write in it every day.
So you have 40 years' worth of diary books in your house?
It's all digital but, every morning, I read 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago and one year ago. I read those to start my day, to see where I am in time.
I read a lot of books on memory and storytelling and confessions and forensics, how useless eyewitness testimonies are. It's fascinating to me that finding even a definition of truth is very, very difficult, and now people with really unpleasant agendas have capitalised on that.
Are you speaking of your former TV boss?
I hate to even say this word but I know Trump and I don't believe he ever lies.
A lie has respect for the truth in that it negates it. Bullshit is just anything that pops into your head, and it negates the whole idea of truth.
He bullshits, which is worse, he has made no attempt to find out what's true and then negate it. He just says whatever he wants. That is much more dangerous. Once you've thrown out the idea there is an agreeable truth, I think we're done.
I was going to say, how was it being in Australia while watching the inauguration?
I blocked it out completely. Many of my friends have just written to me saying, "Don't come back. It's not worth it. Just don't come back."
If only I could just cut off ties with my children. *laughs*
As much as we laugh about this, I think I need to say that, as dire as you think the situation in the United States is, I believe it's that bad or worse. Because I know Trump — at one time the New York Times printed a list of who Trump hated the most. I was number seven. To give you an idea, Hillary Clinton was number eight.
Oh my! What did you do?
This is not what I really did, but this is the funny version. I said his hair looked like cotton candy made of piss.
It's really bad in the US, and it's totally beyond comprehension, because it's not just the US, this kind of crazy despot is catching on everywhere.
In the face of all of that, what gives you hope?
People.
The fact that people are good and things always get better. If you look at the big picture, every 20-year period has gotten better. I mean, all we have to mention is sanitation and then you're done.
I also think the more power you give to women, the less death and suffering there is. It's just always been true. And I do believe that that arc always swings towards decency.
Penn & Teller will perform their 50th Anniversary shows at Queensland Performing Arts Centre from January 30 to February 7.
First published at ABC News, January 30, 2025
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