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My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, You're never going to make it it's too tough out there.

David Copperfield

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David Copperfield
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: September 16
Entertainer
Film Actor
Hypnotist
Illusionist
Stunt Performer
Writer
Metuchen
New Jersey
David Seth Kotkin
Family
Father
Dreamed
Wanted
Mom
Going
Gave
Make
Tough
Never
Actor
Told
Actors

More quotes by David Copperfield

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When the time came to say, Mom, I want to do this as a job, it was brutal. She was really against it. There were screaming matches. Some people are shut down by that and get defeated by it, and other people are empowered by the negativity. My father kind of encouraged me through that.
David Copperfield
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You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing.
David Copperfield
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From the very beginning, I studied acting, directing, lighting, dance and movement. I didn't rely on just the magic to take place. It's a shame that a lot of magicians just rely on the trick itself and they have no other abilities. They get away with the wonder factor, and I don't think that's enough. It's great, but it's not enough.
David Copperfield
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I act like I'm 14, if you haven't figured that out yet.
David Copperfield
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For my father, being kind was natural... I have to really work at it. I love competing and winning, conquest - not words you usually associate with kindness.
David Copperfield
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Like in comedy, you know the names of the people who steal things that others work really hard on. It really sucks. And, in magic, it's not just the hard work of getting the words and attitude and point of view right you're taking an actual invention, making something over three or four years, and somebody can just take it.
David Copperfield
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It's okay for me to be gay, but God didn't make me that way.
David Copperfield
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I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.
David Copperfield
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I try to help people realize their dreams by using magic to tell stories that educate, move, and inspire.
David Copperfield
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For me, I was watching Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, Victor Fleming movies, and I said, I want to tell stories like that. I want to move people like that. But I'm good at magic, so what am I going to do? So I started using magic for the right reasons - to get the girl.
David Copperfield
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I discovered Musha Cay and the islands around it in the Exumas.
David Copperfield
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My job is to make people dream. Of course, there's a lot of technical stuff behind the scenes and a lot of hard work behind it, but I get to watch people see the result of that hard work and feel that wonder and feel that discovery, all the time.
David Copperfield
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Physical rehab is often very, very hard work.
David Copperfield
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What you think is impossible in life actually is possible.
David Copperfield
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You lose your sense of wonder the more you learn, right? When you go to film school and learn about moviemaking, you go to see movies and then only see where the lights are, where the cuts are, watching it from a technical basis, nodding your head, Oh, that was good. The feeling of surprise, the feeling of being transported is further away.
David Copperfield
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Everyone was talking about having airplanes disappear. And I said, Wait, wait, wait. That's what you like? I'd tell you a story about something like my girlfriend leaving me, and the magic was really hard. The airplane thing was comparatively easy, and people liked that thing? I realized at that moment, the power of the simple idea.
David Copperfield
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My father kind of encouraged me through that. Exactly,[work] not as an actor, obviously, but as someone in show business that had some success. He told me to live the impossible. Live the impossible!
David Copperfield
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All my TV shows are done live in front of audiences, and all the material I take on the road and travel with them test them for hundreds and hundreds of shows before I shoot them for TV.
David Copperfield
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In movies, storytelling and every single art form, we're creating wonder. You're starting with a blank page and creating something that doesn't exist.
David Copperfield
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I'm inventing new principles. The audience has a point of view that no one can predict.
David Copperfield