Criss Angel
Criss Angel
Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos, better known by the stage name Criss Angel, is an American magician and illusionist. Angel began his career in New York City, before moving his base of operations to the Las Vegas Valley. He is known for starring in the television and stage show Criss Angel Mindfreak and his previous live performance illusion show Criss Angel Believe in collaboration with Cirque du Soleil at the Luxor casino in Las Vegas. The show generated $150 million in tourist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMagician
Date of Birth19 December 1967
CityTown Of Hempstead, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Reality is perspective. All you have to do is Believe.
When you think like a child your imagination is free and anything is possible.
I am the Mindfreak, there's no Reality! Just this World of Illusion that keeps on haunting me...
To me, it's never about the trick. I don't care about how something works. I care about how people feel when they watch it. You know, that - that connection - that emotional connection is true magic.
Pain is a beautiful thing. When you feel pain, you know you're alive.
Magic speaks to the child in all of us. No matter how sophisticated we become, there's still a part of us who wants to believe in an alternative reality, where we can defy the laws of nature.
It's so funny looking back, but my so-called overnight success actually took 15 years. I remember when I didn't have any money, and my only car was mom's Hyundai.
We weren't poor growing up on Long Island, but it wasn't lavish - just a regular middle-class house.
Houdini connected to people on an emotional level so that when he would escape that straight jacket it wasn't about the straight jacket. It was about people looking at it and escaping poverty. When you have that it's the truest form of magic.
Picking locks or handcuffs for me is not really a big deal, I can do it pretty much in seconds, I've been doing since I was 14 years old. I used to sit on my bed as a kid with a pick set and you know just picking locks and stuff, so I'm used to it.
One of the most gratifying things I get as an artist is when people watch me do these different demonstrations, and they in some way feel empowered by what I'm doing so they can confront their own fears. Maybe it's the fear of getting in an elevator; maybe it's the fear of going on a plane and seeing the world.
A lot of the demonstrations that I do, when I get inside people's minds, is understanding human behavior and understanding how people think and getting their patterns down so I know how to create the illusion that I get inside their brain.
There are somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 working magic professionals in the world, and since we debuted our Magic Kit, we have sold over 1 million. So it's for people who have a strong interest, but be it for one trick or a lifetime, we will be there for them. We will guide them so they don't waste their money.
The magic kit we developed with Idea Village is an extraordinary success in 40,000 stores across America. The TV commercial we shot for it has produced amazing results - unbelievable.