Steve Valentine—magician and actor—shares how magic reignites our child-like sense of wonder and play, helping us believe that anything is possible.
He recalls how, as a boy in the UK, he discovered his fascination with magic. In the school yard, a fellow student made a knot disappear. Steve enjoyed the trick, but was captivated by the effect the magic had on him and the other kids.
Making up his mind to be a magician and an actor, he started grabbing books and teaching himself. A mentor in a local magic group helped him kick his skills up to the next level. In his 20s, he was headlining at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles and performing in venues around the world.
Pigeonholed—especially in Hollywood circles—as a magician, he wasn’t getting traction as an actor. So Steve turned his back on magic, and put all his chips on acting. The gamble paid off. He landed his breakout role as Nigel Townsend on Crossing Jordan. This six-season gig led to roles on other series, and a career voicing characters in video games and animated movies.
A chance encounter with a magician from his original magic group, in a completely unlikely place, shocked him into the realization that he couldn’t give up magic. He had to pursue both his passions. Creating shows around his unique set of skills and talents turned out to be the winning combination.
Steve’s story of bold risks and an unflagging belief in himself will get you fired up to go after your next “It Has To Be Me.”
TESS’S TAKEAWAYS:
ABOUT STEVE VALENTINE
Steve Valentine is a Scottish-American actor and award-winning close-up magician with a penchant for playing wild and quirky characters and entertaining live audiences with his humorous card tricks and quick wit.
On screen, he is best known for playing criminologist Nigel Townsend on Crossing Jordan, ‘80s rock legend Derek Jupiter in I'm In The Band, and Dracula in the Monster High movies.
He’s voiced characters in animated series, including Riley Rocket, Mickey and the Roadster Racers, and Tinkerbell. Gamers know him as the voices of Harry Flynn in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Alistair in the Dragon Age franchise.
On stage, Steve has headlined in Las Vegas and at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and venues worldwide, performing his brand of high-energy magic and comedy. Highlights include national tours with The Illusionists and his one-man shows Life and Other Deceptions and Mr Valentine Blows Your Mind.
To preserve the history and craft of magic and to teach novice magicians, Steve created Magic On The Go, an online video encyclopedia. In his podcast, Magicians Only, he shares his love of magic and storytelling.
CONNECT WITH STEVE
Website: https://stevevalentine.squarespace.com/
Podcast: https://stevevalentine.squarespace.com/podcast
Magic On The Go: https://magiconthego.vhx.tv/browse
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevevalentine
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSteveValentine
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevevalentine/
Meet Tess Masters:
Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of The Decadent Detox® and Skinny60® health programs.
Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.
Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.
Connect With Tess:
Website: https://tessmasters.com/
Podcast Website: https://ithastobeme.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theblendergirl
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/
Get Healthy With Tess
Skinny60®: https://www.skinny60.com/
Join the 60-Day Reset: https://www.skinny60.com/60-day-reset/
The Decadent Detox®: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/
Join the 14-Day Cleanse: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/14-day-guided-cleanses/
The Blender Girl: https://www.theblendergirl.com/
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Oh, Steve, we always have the best conversations. And dear listener, I am so glad that you get to be in on the action. Do you remember when you stayed at my house and we just could not stop talking about everything from politics to magic to acting to parenting to floristry to everything in between, while you
Steve Valentine:were making the tour manuals and just leaving them for me.
Unknown:It was amazing. It was a great couple of weeks. The things you get to do when you're doing guest stars on NCIS, or whatever it was. So I want to
Tess Masters:go back to what made you want to be a performer and fall in love with magic. Specifically, I
Steve Valentine:think I always, I think I was always a performer. I think I was always that kid, you know, and but I do remember, actually, we had, like, um, a theater group that would go, that would do plays at schools. There was the theater group that would go from school to school, and they came to our school. And I must have been, I guess my son, Theo's age, maybe six, or maybe I was like, six or seven, and they wanted a kid out of the audience. And so I was like, I'll do it. And they pull me up, they take me backstage, and they're like, Okay, so we're going to give you a spade, right? A shovel, and you just got a lean on the shovel. And then when we say, What are you doing? What do you think a shovel is for? You have to say, leaning on, right? I was like, Okay, no, like, leaning on because it's funny and I didn't get the jokes. I was like, Okay, I'll say it. I didn't think it was funny. I may have even said, like, it's that funny. So I go out there and I'll never forget. They go, so what do you think the spades for? And I was like, leaning on and the whole group, the whole all of the auditorium, went nuts. They clap, they laughed, they clapped. They thought it was hilarious. I didn't get it, but I was like, Oh, I like this. You like the feeling? I've been chasing that high ever since I think, yeah, I
Unknown:haven't we all right, it's
Steve Valentine:that one bit of attention, that one bit of Oh my God. Now I've gotta go back there and
Tess Masters:so that, that group of strangers in a room, in on the same thing, having a similar experience at the same time. There's just magic in live theater, live experience. There's something about that for me as an audience member, not just a performer, that I just really at a sports event, everyone cheering and hugging strangers in the same moment. You know, sports brings people together. Arts brings people together. You know, these experiences that we share. So what about magic? Specifically, like, what was that, that it has to be me where it was like, whoa. I
Steve Valentine:remember this kid showing me. I remember this kid showing me a trick in the playground. It was like you made a knot disappear in a piece of rope. And I remember having that feeling of wonder, you know, which is just kind of the impossibility of what I've just seen, like you were looking at special effects. And I remember the reactions of the kids around him, notably the girls and just he was treated in a different way. Everybody wanted to know him. So I remember thinking I bugged Him every day until he showed me how it was done, and then I did it for everybody. And then I just, I loved it so much that my parents got me a little box of tricks, you know, and I started reading magic books and going to the library. And it became an obsession, because I just like the idea of getting up on stage and like amazing people and kind of making them, you kind of live for that, not a moment of, oh, you're cleverer than me. It's, I always think that's what's wrong right now with these exposure videos that are all over the internet, that exposing magic tricks is it's just some guy going like, you know, here's how it's done, and they don't realize that's not, that's not what Magic's about. It's, you know, it's not about whether it falls you. It's about how you make someone feel right? You make them feel like a kid. You make them feel I've had, yeah, I've had grown men. I've had soldiers back from, you know, deployment who have said they felt like children again. And thank you for, like, giving me two hours where I didn't have to think about the shit that I've seen and just, you know it. This is why adults love it. I see it in the illusionists. When we go tour, will have, like, little kids, the show works on a level, certain level with them. You got your teenagers, so show works on a certain level with them, although you never know. And then you've got the adults who are the biggest kids of all, you know, and you see their eyes go wide. And I've had guy people on stage have shook their head. I did have one soldier once who got very angry with me in the close up room at the Magic Castle, because he said, There is no way you could have done what I just saw, but you must have set up the whole room, you know, like, and I said, that's the biggest compliment you can give me. But I swear to God, I but the card was signed and it was in the tic tac box. I'm like,
Unknown:Yes, that's, oh, I love that truth that you do Yes, right? So,
Steve Valentine:but you, you've you, I said, you've just experienced what it is to to feel magic and wonder. And it frustrated. Him, but, but at the same time, by the end of it, he was just like, wow. He just, that's
Tess Masters:what my dad's like, you know, he's your number one fan, right? And we've seen you with the Magic Castle, you know, several times we've seen your one man show, blah, blah, blah. It's just huge. He's in his 80s, and he just gets in the car after, you know, seeing one of your shows or another magic show, and just goes, Ah, I don't know how he did that
Unknown:wasn't that amazing.
Tess Masters:It's just, he's just full, filled with endorphins, and just seeing this 80 something year old man who's traveled all over the world, and just being brought down into, not down, I shouldn't even say down, just just into the wonder of play. And who
Steve Valentine:wouldn't want, who wouldn't want, who doesn't want to have that impact on people. It's a positive impact. There was a lady this year I was working in Pittsburgh at Liberty magic, which is a specifically dedicated Magic Theater, which is amazing. And you do these long runs, people go and do one person shows there, and it's really great. And I remember this lady coming up to me afterwards and saying, I don't like magic shows. I didn't want to come tonight. She goes, I didn't want to come. She goes. But I was crying and I was laughing and I was just, I felt like a little girl again. And it's just, you fight through what whatever being an adult has been to these people, to everyone, you know, everyone's gone through this journey where we get, is there a Santa Claus? Is there fairies, all these things, all of these mythologies that get burst around us to the point where that we're like, we don't believe in anything anymore, and then you just, I just saw something that I cannot explain, and I like how that makes me feel. So those exposure videos where you know, you're scrolling through Instagram and suddenly you see how a trick works, that's just dis bursting the bubble for the audience, that's just that's destroying the experience for for the audience. And I, I think they think that they're just hurting the magicians. Well, actually, most of the guys who are doing that are just doing it for money, right? They're doing it for likes. I think it's bullying. I think they're using their position to make money off of, you know, by hurting other people, you hurt magician because he can't do that trick anymore, because now everyone knows how it's done, and you hurt the audience member who just wants to, like, go to a magic show and enjoy it, and now they can't get that out of their head how it's done. So I wish they wouldn't do that. This is what I'm doing, but, yeah, me is where I'm going. But for me, it's, it's the reason I like magic is I love those moments, you know, when people are just, just authentically human again, and all the masks have dropped off, you know. So what
Tess Masters:was it in you that at the age of 10, you're scrolling, you're going through the library, you're teaching yourself this magic. You don't know other magicians, right? You you meet the South End sorcerers, and you decide you're going to go into this magic competition at the age of 10, like, how do we jump from, I'm sort of just doing this for fun at home, because I'm just obsessed with it, and I love it, to I'm going to go in this big competition and stand in this hall and stand in this hall and do it in front of a whole bunch of people. That's terrifying to me. There's no way I'm doing that, like I might do some little simple card trick, but I'm not going in some competition at the age of 10 because
Steve Valentine:I and I have the cutting from the newspaper cutting still from that moment, because I didn't I wasn't a member of the South End sorcerers at that point. I didn't know any other magicians. It was just me and my magic books and my props, and my dad would buy me a couple of tricks. Every Mum and Dad would write me a couple of tricks every Christmas. But I worked on this little magic act. I'd done it at school, I think, or invited a bunch of friends over and did it for them. That was my first lesson in marketing, by the way, was setting up, setting up a magic show in my garage, telling my friend to let everyone know I was going to do the magic show, and and then he didn't tell anyone, so nobody came, you know, and I was angry at him, and he's like, Oh, you shouldn't just just rely on me, you know. You have to get the word out. You have to get the word out. Steve, marketing lesson, 101, but no, I so I saw this ad in the south end. It was called the evening echo, which was a local newspaper, and it said that there was a magic competition, and the first prize was, I think it was like 50 pounds and free tickets to the movie. And the movie was an X rated movie. It was called Magic, but with Anthony Hopkins, which is a fantastic, oh yes, based on the book by William Goldman. And it's available. Actually, I just watched it again on to be and it was fantastic. It holds up. So this movie, so the guy who owns a movie theater, like, I'm going to promote it. He knows marketing. He's like, I'm gonna promote it, right by having a magic competition, you know, to promote the opening of the movie, magic. Great idea. All the press was there. I remember walking in and I had this little like eight minute act. And I remember walking and seeing all of these magicians for the first time. I didn't know. There were so many in town, I didn't know. And just I go and do my my act, and it's, I wasn't very good, but I was 10, right? So everyone else was an adult, so I
Unknown:would minutes, you said, Little eight minutes for a 10 year old, that seems like an eternity. What?
Steve Valentine:Yeah, it was, it was, it was an eternity. Yeah, I remember I did like a floating ball trick, a thing with Billy balls, and produced a rabbit from a box. Hypnotized the rabbit, but that was it. And I just, you know, they let me. They let me win because it was a good story. See again, lesson in marketing. They said to me, we're going to let you win because we like the fact that we can say he's so young he can't even take part of this prize, you know, the X rated tickets. I couldn't go see the movie, so it gave the reporter something else to hook into the story. So, but in that process, I met Dick Turpin, who was this old street performer. He was a real magician, you know, he just spent his whole life working the streets of London. Who's? He used to be like a bit of an itinerant magician. Lovely guy, super slider hand expert. I mean, it must have been in his mid 70s then, and and he told me about the magic, about this local magic Club, which I didn't know it existed, called the South End sorcerers. And they invited me to a meeting. And I remember my mom took me to the meeting, and it was just like, My people, you know, I would just I walked in, and it was like, I'm home, and they bent the rules. The Secretary, I think was Brian, but they bent the rules to let me join, because it was an adults only club. And that kind of act of kindness was amazing. So once a month, I would go to this above this local pub, and all these magicians would gather, and we'd have lectures and swap tricks and and then Dick turban. As I got a little bit older, when I got like, a day job, he'd come visit me at my day job, you know, sometimes at this department store where I was selling clothing, sometimes he'd show up in a top hat in a cave, and I'd be like, you can't, you can't do that dick. It's embarrassing. You know, you do a hot skip and a jump. But he was so lovely, and he just wanted to share everything with me. And I remember he was in his 80s. I think was in his 80s, he was old, and he was still learning stuff, right? He was learning the zither at one point, I remember going over to visit him, and he was learning how to play the zither. And I remember thinking like as you would as a kid, you would just think, but you're so old now. Why are you bothering to learn anything new? You know, you know. And his, his whole mantra was, you have to stay sharp. You have to say, stay alive. And I want, I wanted to learn how to play this. And, yeah, he was lovely. So he taught me a lot. Oh,
Tess Masters:what a fantastic role model. So being in that group, breaking the rules, going and doing that competition at 10, is that what really instilled in you that? Why not me? Why not because I was like, it's one of the things I admire about you. Thank you.
Steve Valentine:I, you know, I have always been like, well, if they can do it, I can do it. And I'm not, not to say that I haven't had a toddler imposter syndrome, because I have, you know, and we
Unknown:all do, right, that every day. You
Steve Valentine:know, this is your podcast right? Yeah, okay, you are a podcaster. Test.
Unknown:I am a podcaster, yeah, I'm a podcaster. There you go. All right,
Steve Valentine:thank you. I just feel like I remember my mom said that when I was really young, we'd watch the Oscars, and I would be like, one day, Mum, I'll be there getting an Oscar. Like, I just for me it was, and if I heard stories or read interviews of people, and this is what they started from here, and they ended up here, and I thought, well, that's the it just always seemed the journey that I was never, I was never destined to stay in my hometown. I was always, I felt destined that I needed to go places and do things was hard, and quite often, especially in England, you know, there's, there's still a pretty dominant class system, especially if you want to break into acting, you kind of, at least back then, especially, you needed to go to the top, one of the top five theater schools, which my folks couldn't afford. And, you know, so there was a lot of that there was very hard I did theater, but it was incredibly hard to get an agent back then, which is why I went to LA, you know, in the end. But you always kind of feel, you just see the stories of everybody. Everybody comes from somewhere, and they're successful. So you I think the naivety of youth is a very powerful thing. You know, you just kind of go, okay, and you and in England, you're breaking there is this kind of unspoken, often spoken attitude of, who do you think you are? Don't get above your station. You know that in Australia, you want to be a star. I remember people would say to me, you want to be an actor. Who do you think you are? Tom Cruise, and the other people would say, you want to be an act, a magician. Who do you think you are? David Copperfield, Paul Daniels, David Nixon. There was always these kind of like, Who do you think you are? And there's something and I, and I was thinking about it, just. The other day, there's something about having a quiet confidence, not an arrogance, but a quiet confidence, when you can believe that at some point you're going to achieve the thing you want to achieve, maybe, maybe not, in the way you originally envision. It
Tess Masters:never plays out exactly the way you think it's going to.
Steve Valentine:Never, no, no. God laughs at the plans, right? It's just like and some and some, and often it's for the better, because you didn't know something. It's like, you ever bump into the bump into an old flame, or someone you had a crush on, and then you bump into them years later and they like, Thank God they didn't like me, you know? But
Unknown:it's, it's the corrective, absolutely right? It's corrective experiences where
Steve Valentine:you're amazing. Garth Brooks wrote a whole song about it called thank God for unanswered prayers. Absolutely
Unknown:sliding doors. I love to see the road don't travel to go. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah,
Steve Valentine:yeah. It's that Scrooge moment you're like, yeah, yeah.
Tess Masters:Take me inside. How your father's death, you know, when you were 16, right? I mean, that's a really pivotal time, yeah, for anybody, for boys, you know, and their fathers, yeah. How did that inform your I'm not staying here. I gotta get out of here overseas. Yeah,
Steve Valentine:gosh. I mean, I had just competed in the young magic circle in London, which is the Big Magic international magic club. It had had a young magician of the year competition, and my dad had taken me up, and I just competed in it and come second. And I remember coming home being disappointed, but my dad was a kind of a guy a few words, you know, he worked really hard. He commuted every day to London and back, and I remember him going in the kitchen with him and my mom. And then I remember my dad saying that he was proud of me, which was, I was like, it was really quite something. And he gave me a hug, you know,
Tess Masters:that I come to his time. He never said that to you.
Steve Valentine:I don't mean must have been, because it had such an impact on me, and not that he was a cold person, but just, yeah, just British, you know. And I remember that moment distinctly, and then within. And then a couple of weeks later, I'd gone to a meeting of the South End sorcerer society. You picked me up. We were driving home, and I talk about this in the show as well. I remember having an, I guess it was almost prescient moment where I was like, what would I do if my dad had a heart attack right now? Just kind of that feeling of, you know, how do you handle an emergency situation like that, you know? And it was weird. And that night I was up, he poked his head in the living room and asked me if I was going to bed. And I was like, No, I'm gonna stay up and read some magic books. And he said, Okay, bye. And that was the last time I saw him alive. And it's just, you have this I had this memory of him saying, bye, not good night. You know, this kind of closure moment in a weird way, it was the next halfway through the night, there was a loud crash, if he'd had a heart attack in the bathroom, the paramedics came. They took him away, and they took my mum with him, and my sister was in college, and my brother was in the army at that point, so it was just me in the house, and the I stayed at the house, and then we got a phone call saying, You need to come because your dad's not doing so well. And I got a taxi there, and I remember, and looking back now, and this is really messed up, if you think about it, I don't think I've ever talked about this, but the I remember walking in, the doctors pulling me into a room and saying, Okay, listen, your father has passed away, but we haven't told your mother yet because we want to get some friends here for her. So we're gonna, you're gonna sit with her and just don't tell her, okay? And for like 20 minutes, I sat in that waiting room knowing that my dad had died, but not being able to have any emotional like, talk about repressing an emotion, right, just shock until, until her friends arrived, and then, and then, yeah, and so that was, that was fucking brutal
Tess Masters:that I have so many opinions about that. I mean that, oh gosh, wow. You
Steve Valentine:know it was, it was harsh. So that moment really like we would, we were kind of a splintered family in that my brother was in the Army Cadets, my sister was in university, and I was in and out doing things. But I do know that from that moment, then it was just, it was my mom and me for a long time, right? And we were living at home, and then my mom would drive me to all of these kind of gigs or shows and events, and then she eventually got, eventually got a boyfriend, but it was so many stories there, but they're not. Mind to tell that but, but that losing my dad, losing that anchor, and I remember it with it just coming after he'd said he was proud of me, and just at a point where I felt like I was getting to know him, like I felt robbed by that, that losing that father figure. And I think I protected myself by just isolating and just focusing on my work and on my on my magic. And I was a member of a dance theater group at the time, and I just, you know, I just kind of focused on that. I just emotionally just kind of shut off. We I remember, you know, things happen in life. I always think there's these signposts in life that we if we're aware of them, they're everywhere, and I talk about them all the time too. It's like, if you look around, there are signposts that tell you whether you're on the right path. Sometimes they'll make fun of you. Sometimes they'll it's a sarcastic comment after something just happened, you know, like, I just got, I just got an award for, like, and it's being an inspirational performer. And but the moment when, at the exact moment I found out I got the award for being an inspirational performer, I was sick and throwing up into the bar, and I was like, this is, this is like, if they could see you now,
Unknown:it's my wife. You see this to sub is great. Other times it's like, whatever. Who
Steve Valentine:cares. This is hilarious. This is a moment where the universe is like, have a sense of humor, and then you can, like, you can be doing something, and there'll be a lyric in a song, or on a on a billboard, or something that connects directly with what you're thinking or going through
Tess Masters:at the time, totally right. You've gotta receive that and see it. You gotta be that's what you do so beautifully in life. I see that as a friend of yours, but also as a performer, you really bring all of these elements together, and it is always a very human experience watching you perform and and your is
Steve Valentine:now. I mean, I kept, I kept the live performance and the magic when, when I decided to quit the magic when I decided just to focus on the acting. You know, that's having that side of me blocked off for the longest time, when, when I finally decided to get back into it like the floodgates open, not like
Tess Masters:people. I want to go into that, because it's,
Steve Valentine:well, you were right there. I mean, maybe I'm jumping all over the
Tess Masters:place here, but Jump, jump away. No. I mean, you know, this was so great about these conversations. They go where they go, right? And now
Unknown:our minds are labyrinths, and yours is like a magical kind of cavern
Tess Masters:of of memories and ideas, just like everybody, just a cabin, really? Yeah? No, I want to go back to what you were saying about. I closed off, yeah, I cut this, this big part of myself feeling emoting, experiencing what opened you back up again.
Steve Valentine:I had decided that the magic was getting in the way of the acting I was doing, both in LA and I was doing auditions and bumping into people that I knew from Magic gigs, and I felt like I wasn't being taken seriously as an actor. So I needed to. I had a number of incidents happened, and I needed
Tess Masters:to wait a second. Sorry, I want to go back for a second. Did you back then because you didn't maybe have a conversation you wanted to have with your dad in that moment where you said, I'm just going to keep doing magic tricks, you associated doing the magic with your father's death. Is that what closed you off, or that experience? No,
Steve Valentine:because I kept on doing the magic after that. It wasn't because, in fact, I right after that, I shortly after that, I got a job at Butlins, and then a job in Yugoslavia, entertaining people. So,
Tess Masters:okay, so it wasn't the magic, but when you say it closed me off the so what? So I was,
Steve Valentine:when I went to LA, I decided I could work as a magician to make money to you know, it's that crazy. It's stupid. It's stupid. You go, like, I'm gonna break in as an actor, and how are you gonna pay for that? By doing magic shows. Like, it's both entertainment and none, none of which is guaranteed, right? None was
Tess Masters:so great when you moved to LA with your girlfriend. Yeah, you will. You found an apartment up the street from the Magic Castle by charging sign posts. Right? That story is crazy. It's the first
Steve Valentine:apartment complex we stayed at, and it was owned by an English couple, and because I was from England, they gave me a break. I didn't I was on a holiday visa. I didn't have, like, a credit or, a social security number and and
Tess Masters:a girlfriend to LA, right? That's why it was that, yeah,
Steve Valentine:yeah, this girl that I just married on the sparrow the moment, that's another story, but I have a tendency to be a bit reckless. And anyway, anyway, so it doesn't matter. But the point is. That we'd gone to LA and we didn't know anyone, but we just happened to this lady, this English lady who rented to me, Norris and Joan, and then, and then Joan said to me, actually, there's a she goes my day job. She says, I work for Georgio is in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive. She goes, and I know across the street is a place called David or girls silver antique shop. They're looking for a salesperson right now. And I was like, Oh, I could sell anything, you know, my British accent and and so she got me an interview, and I worked there for six months. So I went from being in south end on sea, you know, to Rodeo Drive like selling hundreds of 1000s of dollars worth of antiques, to people like Jimmy Stewart's ex wife, widow, you know, just these massive stars. And it was talk about a culture shock and then, but that I was right by the castle, so I ended up going up there, auditioning, and then working there. Whenever they needed, I made a deal with the one of the hosts, the managers there, where, if they ever needed an extra performer, they just give me a shout. I was they would page me right and back in the day, and then I would, I just run up and do the shows right now, because I was right there. And I made an extra 50 bucks a night anytime I wanted to do a show. But more was, more importantly, I got to give out my business cards and and back when we did that, yeah, yeah, yeah, about when we did that weren't supposed to at the castle, but we did anyway, and that's just kind of what and so what happened was I ended up kind of becoming the Beverly Hills party circuit guy that I started working with all these big multi millionaire clients. Yeah, you know, Lawrence Kasdan, Randy Newman was my first ever the songwriter. Randy Newman was my first ever celebrity client. I remember arriving at his house, and there was a massive white piano in his living room. And I'd read this thing about, if you look at the book when you're in someone's home, look at their book collection. Look at their library, it tells you everything you need to know about the person, right? And I remember looking at and seeing all of these music, comedy, musical books, and then I saw the Three Amigos, and I'm like, no one's got the novel to the three amigos. It's got to be Randy, you know? And it was, and I did shows for him for years. And so what ended up happening was that I was entertaining the people that I wanted to be. And so there was a like, you know, you're so close, right? You're, you're, you're so close and you're so far at the same time. And you told
Tess Masters:me stories about these people acting very badly, yeah,
Steve Valentine:well, that was just performing
Tess Masters:at somewhat, you know, huge, massive, a list stars birthday party, and everyone in the room is talking and making crash jokes, and they're not even watching you perform, not
Steve Valentine:watching me. And there was a there was a guy in the audience who was on his phone loud, loudly, being super obnoxious. And I remember saying, throwing, I come from a British working men's club. So you when someone heckles or is being obnoxious, you throw a line out. You heckle a line. You know can be some kind of generic put down that gets them to shut up. But Americans are very sensitive, and it doesn't matter how rude someone in the audience is being. You're not supposed to be that. You know you're supposed to handle it. I don't it doesn't say that in my contract, but everybody seems to think that's the deal and and I remember him saying, I remember doing some line, and he said to me, why don't you go do your Go Do Your act in the corner. And if anybody wants to watch it, they can come over there. You know, I'm like, 23 four, it was brutal and all of those. So yeah, I had these wonderful experiences, and then experiences like that, and I was terrified it was gonna destroy my chances of breaking in as an actor. So, yeah, one day I just decided I'd had a dinner with this guy, Ray Stark, who was a big Hollywood producer. He did movies like Night of the Iguana and funny lady and kind of as a big, big, big Hollywood producer. And he'd invited me to his house for dinner, and I met him at the Magic Castle. He said, I want to talk to you about a movie. And I was like, yes, yes, it's great. So I go to his house, which is rock Hudson's old house, and so there's these, like, this sprawling estate. There's a cop car in the front. I'm like, Are the police here? And he said, No, no, I just bought that. I parked that there. Keeps that keeps the thieves away.
Unknown:I mean, they do that on that, you know that famous Sunset Boulevard house with all the people in front? Yeah, Bill Cosby lived there at one point or something, and there's always a police car sitting there with nobody in it, and they did the
Steve Valentine:same thing. That's exactly what I in fact, I did a, I did my, my first Beverly Hills event was at that house. At the time, it was owned by a as all these kind for those people don't know this, there's like a whole family playing ball outside in the
Unknown:just like Connie cows, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Valentine:It was owned by a guy called Stanley Black, who was a realtor, and he had this real estate guy, and he had this massive garden party. And I remember going up to this one table to do close up magic. And Milton Berle. There was a guy George Burns, Milton. Earl and Cesar Romero was sitting at the table, and a comedian called Jack, something or other, and I remember starting my acts, and then Milton Berle going, Oh, the kids doing my bits, the kids doing my lines, the kids doing my magic, you know, because I didn't realize he was really into magic. And then I remember being so excited that Cesar Romero was there, you know, and I said to him, you know, I loved you and Batman, like you were my favorite Joker, you know. And I guess that's the worst thing you could have said to him, because he was so mean to me. He was so nasty. But that, that memory of old Hollywood kind of, you know, all there with their dog tooth coats and jackets, like smoking Hollywood, smoking cigars and just that was at that place that was at Stan, that place with the statues, but
Unknown:with his fake police car,
Steve Valentine:yeah, yeah, right, you know, so Ray stock, so he did, so he gives me, we have dinner. There's a whole bunch of people there. We have to sit and watch a movie, which when you do when you do, when you used to go to a house party in Hollywood, they'd always have a they'd always have a movie sent over by the studio, right? Was so Hollywood, and it was a genuine, like real to real movie. And they would, you would go in their screening room, and they would put it on. And in this case, it was so this will give you an idea of what year it was American Pie. And, you know, Ray was an older guy, and he didn't really understand what was going on in the pie scene. And if you remember the famous pie scene, and he was like, he wanted someone to explain what the hell was happening. And nobody, nobody did. But everybody left. And then it was just me and Ray, and he gave me the script, which was Houdini. And he said, I was like, what role can I play in this? And he was like, no, no. He says, I want you to help me with the magic tricks, because he got, he said he had Tom Cruise to play Houdini. It's funny. I looked it up recently, and there's a whole history of him trying to get this movie made for years, but he told me he got Tom, Tom Cruise would be amazing as Houdini. He's so perfect for it, but I wish I still had the script as well. But he's and he said to me, he said, I want you to help me develop the magic tricks for the film. And I remember saying, I'll do that for free. If I can get, like, a part, can you give me a part in the film? And he'd said to me, like, What are you talking about? You're a magician, you know, it was like, What are you? Are you a magician? Are you an actor? You got to make a choice, you know, and, and so that was kind of one of the reasons why I decided to quit the magic, which I did for almost 10 years, and worked, started working a lot as an actor, and missed the magic. And then I was in New Zealand, and I bump, and it's my day off. I'm in Auckland, and there's a little magic shop there, and I go in there, I figure no one's going to see me in New Zealand, right? You know, I'm paranoid,
Tess Masters:so I'm allowed to be, I'm allowed to be into magic here,
Steve Valentine:yeah, and, well, I'll go look in the magic shop because, and there was a guy in in Auckland there who was part of the South End sorceress when I was a kid, and he moved his family, and the odds of that, we ended up having dinner. His name's Brian Oakes. We had dinner. He had video of all the old guys from my my childhood, from my memory, including my old mentor, right? And and they, I just looked up at the stars, and I was just like, all right, I got the message. It was just, I mean, at some point you have to say this doesn't happen for you not to do anything about it. There's a reason. And so that whole story became integral to my one man show, and I ended up learning the very the trick that Dick Turpin always wanted me to do that I couldn't do because it was too hard. And I ended up closing the show with that trick. Every night, I remember the crazy thing is, you remember when I did this because you were there in LA when I put the show on? It was my idea, my way of saying, I'm back with magic, but it's okay to be everything. It's okay to be an actor and a magician was to do a show that was a narrative based show, and kind of present everything on an equal footing. And the crazy thing is, is during the course of that run, all these doors open, all these people from my past suddenly appeared like the guy that booked me on the cruise ship that ended up taking me to the states. Was in the audience one night. This was so this would have been some 30 years later, and he just happened to be in the audience as an older guy, but I'm like, You're the guy that booked me in the middle of the show. I was like, Wait, you're the guy that booked me. And he goes, Yeah, you got better, which I thought was the best tackle ever. And then I talk about the girl Sue who had said to me when I was a teenager, like, you should go to America. You've got nothing. You've got nothing keeping you here. You know, you've got no, no roots here. Why don't you just go to America and try and break in over there? Because I was complaining about how hard it was to get an agent. And. London, and she goes, we should just go to America. And you'd be special, you know, you'd be like, this English guy, and you could, like, go knock on doors. And that was one of the inspiring factors of why we ended up going to Hollywood. But that, but I get a message from her saying, you might not remember me. My name is Sue Devaney. I was, I'm an actress in England, and remember when I we were kids, and we talked about going to LA and you actually did it, and she's actually said, I'm going to be in Hollywood any chance you want to grab a cup of coffee. And I'm like, I'm doing a show right now where I literally mention your name.
Unknown:Just unbelievable, right? So
Steve Valentine:then I got that moment where I was like, and she's in the audience tonight, you know, and got to,
Tess Masters:I mean, I came to see that show three times, and I saw the reboot of it at the Magic Castle, where you streamlined it down. But I saw it twice in LA, that beautiful little theater, and it was, it was very emotional, because there were so many people you know that knew you had it, you know, were part of the pieces of your story, and you were very honest and raw in that show about the trajectory and really owning the parts of yourself, you know, and making fun of yourself being very honest about Ina and your kids and and your family. And it was it, to me, that was the magic of the show. Like, yes, you dotted magic tricks throughout, and you are a brilliant, you know, magician. But to me, that was the magic was, you know, what's funny going this is who I really am. As you were saying before, about just when you take down the masks of being adult and you
Steve Valentine:people lean in that child, that's when that's when everybody leans in. They can sense that you're being genuine. And that was the biggest lesson for me. Was the the beginning of that show was 45 minutes of non stop magic, which then comes to a sudden halt when I pretend that something's gone wrong, and it's very kind of like, Shit, fuck. I gotta turn the lights on, something's happened. And I let all of that air, all of that energy that we've been building up, I just let that completely dissipate, just a very scary moment. And then I grab a chair, I sit down, and I start talking to the audience and telling them about how I'm amazed I'm here because I quit magic 10 years ago, and I swore I'd never do another magic trick again. And I take them into the journey, right? And the most frustrating and yet eye opening moment was when people would say to me, we love the magic. It was great. You know, the first 45 minutes, all that magic and comedy, but when you sat in a chair and started talking to us, that's when we really leaned in and you go, and I'm like, well, it takes me an hour and a half to set up the first 45 minutes of the bloody show, and no one cares like it. I needed to do it in order to show this is what I am and who I am and what I can do. Imagine giving this up, you know, going down this road, and then this is how I come back to it. But it was, but it was a big lesson. You know, you can sit in a chair and tell a story and you see it with any of you ever seen fleabag. But yeah, it's that you see the live play. In the live play, she's that character, and she sits in a stall and she doesn't get up for like, night, yeah,
Tess Masters:yeah, the National Theater live recording, yeah, I've seen that too. It's amazing, very powerful, inspiring, you know. And there's power in stillness, too. I mean, I think that's something you learn as a performer when you get older, that we don't need to be moving around and look at me and, you know, being interesting, you know, we can just be still and present and full of what's happening. And I, you know, for me, when I saw the show, that is what worked. Wasn't the design, right? Still, it was that you were being very honest.
Steve Valentine:There was that whole idea of having just a frenetic, chaotic, comedic, magical opening section, and then suddenly you bring it down to a guy sitting in a chair in a spotlight. And now people are like we thought we knew what this show was, and now we've no idea what we've come to. And I like that idea of taking, building up an expectation and then destroying it, which, in really is what magic is all about. We take down garden paths, you know, and then there's always a brick wall at the end of that garden path. And we kind of, you know, that's what magic is, and and storytelling, right?
Tess Masters:I mean, talking about this, it's not what we thought it was going to be. Oh, gee, what have I gotten myself into? I mean, we experience that every day with every dances, right? So going into some of the things that have happened in your. Acting career, yep, so many of those things didn't play out the way that you thought they were going to, either, you know. So you're a jobbing actor. You're getting all these, you know, one liner parts, and then co stars, and then wanting to get guest stars, and then you land, you know, crossing Jordan, which didn't turn out to be what it was supposed to be, either. So take me inside of that. It has to be me, where you I
Steve Valentine:would say crossing Jordan was what I had. That series was great. I thought, I thought it was going to lead to something else that didn't pan out. But the six year, six years on that show,
Tess Masters:it wasn't supposed to be a series regular. Was it? Oh, I see what you
Steve Valentine:mean. Yeah. No, no, it wasn't. It was. I had done a bunch of guest stars, and I was doing, I was doing a recurring character on a sitcom called Nikki for the WB, and one of the other recurring characters we were kind of, it was a Bruce Helford show, who was doing The Drew Carey Show at the time. And I remember I was in almost every episode, but I was only being paid as a guest star, so it was a bit cheeky, don't they, you know. So they introduced me every day at table, reading every week, and not Steve's a member of the family. And I'm like, Yeah, right. I'm like, I'm like, Ruprecht, I'm like, the guy in the basement. But there was another guy, Brad who who was in the same situation. Brad Henke is lovely actor, and he was playing a wrestler in the show. And Brad came in one day, and I remember thinking, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this anymore. And I was like, No, I don't want to piss off the WB, and maybe I just smears with the executives and get something out of it. So I was letting them kind of take advantage of me. And Brad came in one day and he said, I just auditioned for the show, the Untitled Tim King project. He said, But I'm not right for it. He's but I think you'd be great for it. You should tell your agent about it. And I remember telling my agent he hadn't even heard of it. He was useless. He hadn't heard of it at all. So he got me the audition, and then that was going to be just the guest star, possible recurring, yeah, for that. So we did the pilot, I got it, did the pilot, and then when the show got picked up, at that point, I had like five national commercials on running at the time, and so I was in a bit of money, and I felt like I was on a roll, and I and it gives me, I remember
Unknown:meeting you at one of those auditions. You and I were the same audition, and you were on a roll booking everything.
Steve Valentine:I was the wacky guy. I was the whatever they wanted, the artistic, wacky guy. And I just remember thinking they said that they want you back for the series as another guest star, recurring character, and they wanted to pay me half of what they pay me for the pilot. And I was like, and I remember just thinking, no, no, I'm gonna be paid. They pay me a lot of money, but at least pay me like this, you know, at least pay me something more as a and, and that's
Tess Masters:a move when you really want to be an actor and you're trying to break in and you get this really big opportunity. I mean, that's, that's it
Steve Valentine:was. I remember my agent was like, what? I was like, No, you gotta go back and fight. Just give me a little bit more money. Um, and because what happens when you become when you work on a television show a lot, is you can no longer. Do you think you the door opens for commercials, but actually the draw closes, because you're now kind of synonymous with that show, and
Tess Masters:you were playing a very specific kind of a role in that show too. Yeah,
Steve Valentine:yeah. I mean, he was, yeah. He was a criminologist, kind of Gothic criminologist, who worked, right? So the so I go and anyway, so they only kept they came back and said, Yes, all right, fine, we'll pay him a little bit more. And I went in and did the second episode, and I remember just like consistently, like talking to the writers and the producers and trying to just be memorable, right? And and then by the fifth episode, I remember saying to my agent, it's happening again. I'm in every episode, but I'm a guest, or I'm not being I'm not a series regular. And I was about ready to say, we need to have that conversation with them. Maybe I actually said that to my my agent, and my agent called me back and said, so weird. They just called and said they want to make you a series regular. And so like 13 out of 23 ended up doing all of them and and I was off. It was, it was, you know, it was, it was, it was a case of believing in yourself, believing that you're worth something, the arrogance of youth, the naive, you know, definitely, but also just there was something about the time and the place in that character in that show that just fit so well, yeah, just it was great and and so initially the show was story based, even. Though there was, like the body of the week, there was, it was really, there was a lot of it was about what was going on at the coroner's office, the characters, the interaction between them. And then CSI came out and was a massive hit, and was all about the DNA, right? And so suddenly the show changed and became all about the DNA. And we had less character storylines are more just I became a guy in the morgue. That was, that was like I would get the two page speeches with all the terminology, because when accent made it sound like I knew I was talking about, but it was very so
Tess Masters:it ultimately wasn't fulfilling for you. When, when things shifted into that format. I
Steve Valentine:had a moment, yeah, I had a moment when I remember whinging about it to someone, and then they were like, well, at least you're working. And I started thinking, this is this is amazing. This Okay, fine. This will be a stepping stone to something else, maybe more creative, but appreciate what I have. And I had a moment when I was going to quit the show. But a long story. I had a manager and someone else in my ear that kept telling me that if they didn't pay you so much money, you should quit. And all it was was that the manager was trying to get renegotiation money. He even admitted it later, nasty little piece of work he was, and so he was, he was like, pushing me to to threaten to quit. And we'd had this moment, and then I remember Miguel Ferrer, God bless him. Like he called me, he's my coach, my co stars, and he called me. He was like, Hey, man, we miss you on set. Come back, bro. He's like, you know, ride this shit into the sunset. This is a rare situation. He's like, being on any television series is so rare. He's like, you just, you know, enjoy it for what it is, you know. And that beautiful phone call made me feel like I was part of a family. And so I went back and went back to the show, and it was great. Thank you, Miguel.
Tess Masters:And I mean, think about who else was on that show. I mean, Catherine, so many Mahershala,
Steve Valentine:Ali, yeah, he did the first season. Oh, he was so lovely on the show too. He was great character. We had this scene where we had an episode, I don't even know, if you would, we always played the ambiguity of my character's sexuality, yeah, and we always that was the other thing. When I was doing it, I was like, How do I how do I create longevity for myself, right? So I was like, Yeah, every time Jill Hennessy comes on camera as Jordan, I'm going to be looking at her like, I'm in love with her.
Unknown:And eventually the writer is a beautiful woman,
Steve Valentine:yeah? But then the writers picked up on that, right? And then it was like, Nigel obviously has this crush on on Jordan. But I was like, I can create those dynamics with each character. Then I can, I can, you know, so with, yeah, with Mahershala, we had this lovely episode where I invite him to come with me up to a cabin for the weekend, and he's doesn't know whether I want to do it as bros or more than pros. And so the whole episode is this lovely kind of awkward, is he or isn't he? And it was just lovely. I'm, you know, it was so many wonderful things. And then obviously, Catherine Hahn, who went off to she did a couple of seasons, and then, and then she left the show to go do something else, and then a career. And I think what it was, was they were like, Okay, we're gonna, kind of, we're gonna work on your film career. So you can't be on a television series for however long. You need to come and do this with us. She was amazing. Like she came straight out of you. I remember she came straight out of, I think she was an NYU graduate, and so, like when she first started on the show, you know, we're all showing her how to hit a mark and look at where she is. Now, I'm happy and pleased with her, because it couldn't be, couldn't be a nicer person, lovely person. I love
Tess Masters:her attack as an actor, she's just incredible. She's a well,
Steve Valentine:she's a real theater actor like her, her like on stage. That's where all of that comes from. It's just so it's why everything
Tess Masters:she does is she pierces my heart. I just love her so much. Yeah, so when the show finishes, you're not a series regular on this huge, popular TV show. Yeah, what? What's that been like? Like that transition.
Steve Valentine:I mean, being an actor, you're is the only business I feel where you're constantly hired and fired. Like it's you're hired and fired and hired and fired. You never know Season to Season whether the show is going to get picked up. We should have been picked up for another season. We weren't. There was a new head of NBC who decided to cancel us when our show was actually doing really well. Yeah, he got a lot of flack for that down the road, and he kept on a show that he happened to be a producer of. So, you know, put those, put those, those Hollywood chips together. But he so we got. Canceled. And I remember saying to an executive at one point, I think was on our last episode, I remember saying, like, I'm really nervous about what's going to happen next, you know? And she was like, you'll always work. And I'm like, yeah, it's not what you want to hear. And you don't want to hear like you'll always work. You. It was, it's you, you hit a brick wall, right? And then you doesn't it? You mourn? Well, depending on if you had a great experience, I was loving it even more. I had become single. I had kind of been able to get control of my life, and
Tess Masters:you mean you weren't hanging out at the Playboy Mansion all the time. I
Unknown:know all those stories.
Steve Valentine:I was hanging out as a single guy at the Playboy match. I went from like being, being the guy who was like, oh, it's not enough. The writing isn't enough. There aren't enough scenes of my character. You know, I feel like so and so is taking more air time than me, you know, kind of these kind of insecure actor things where I just, I just wanted so much more to be, to be part of the every storyline I went from that to having this kind of watershed moment. I woke up in the morning and I was like, literally, just enjoy what's going on here in the last two years of that series, if they only wrote me in one scene. I was like, peace, great. I get paid the same and I'm gonna go to Mexico and I'll be back in a week. What I mean, it was like I had that kind of and it was just when I was really starting to enjoy it for what it was that the show came to an end. And
Tess Masters:I remember, I've worked so much since the show. You know, you've been a series regular on other shows. You've done films, you've done huge video games, you know, Uncharted and other things, animated series and all kinds of things. And I know the job to job to job to job thing, yeah. So after that watershed moment, what do you focus on now with your career, whether it's being an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, a magician, you know, I mean, you just wear so many hats you're always creating. So if we're going to draft off that watershed moment, what is it that you're looking for now as a story, the
Steve Valentine:next step right, the step up from there. You, you, you in the old days, in the old days, when you came to LA they told you that you could, you would build your quote, your fee, would build with more experience. The more experience you had, the more you could charge, right? And that the more experience you had, no exposure you had, the better roles and opportunities you would get. There's just that just never pans out anymore. It's not that way anymore. Corporations made it so that I saw this come in the last couple of years of crossing Jordan, when German electric took over universal and the attitude of like instead of the corporate so the attitude, the work attitude, was always like, we're lucky to have you. We're so happy to be working with you, and happy that we're here together, working creating this project, right? We appreciate you all. It changed from that to you're lucky to have a job that became the attitude, that became the energy. And so that's what happened to Hollywood. You went from, Hey, I've worked and created, I've learned. I've created. I have an audience, I have experience. I have all these hours, 250 hours of TV that should be worth something to Yeah, you're lucky if we give you scale, right? So this, this is where the industry was heading. So I finished crossing Jordan, and my goal was to find an agent that I really this manager, guy who had completely manipulated me, and my ex fired him, and I was like, I need to find it. I need to find an agent manager, someone to to be able to take the exposure that I had, I'm coming off of a network television series to the next level, and I ended up choosing someone, and I made a series of really bad mistakes, just like the people I chose, the people I decided to go with I thought were experienced and weren't. I was lied to about some of these experience like but so it was a couple of things. The show was a popular show, crossing Jordan. It wasn't an industry watch show, right? There's two kinds of shows you get. You get the NCIS, you get the crossing Jordans of the world that are these procedural, massive juggernaut shows that have, you know, 3040, 50 million viewers, and they're not watched by the industry. So the industry watches the Sopranos. The industry is like, Game of Thrones. So crossing Jordan was a success and a hit, but no one in the industry knew me from it, yeah. So suddenly I was like, I had all of this, these credits that I had this experience. But. No still, I was back to square one, and no one bloody knew me. And it was like before the ship, before I started the series. And it was, it was shocking, you know? And so it was the person I ended up being repped by. Really had no experience as a manager, which was a shock. And I went from a series of agent to agent to agent, trying to get someone who could make a difference and make a dent. And my whole career has always been around about transcending what everyone thinks I can do. So I remember meeting an agent, big agency, who said no. And I was like, I just got off a television series, you know, I couldn't and it was like, Yeah, we're not going to rep you. And then later on, I was told, a year or so later, I got another series. Oh no, this was before crossing Jordan. I met this oh yeah, I'd met this guy before crossing Jordan. Interviewed for their agency. They said no. And then it was like, two months later, I got crossing Jordan, and that agent, to this day, will do actor workshops where he'll talk about, like, things that mistake, how everybody, everybody makes mistakes. You know, I remember this guy, Steve Valentine, came in, and we said no, and he went off to do crossing Jordan and, you know, and I'm like, the fact that I'm a, I just want to say, Fuck you to that guy. I don't want to be a story, you know, like, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a No, I don't want to be a story that you tell in an actor's workshop anyway, so, but I had these, I just had a series of bad like, the kind of bad reps, bad luck casting directors who didn't see me as anything other than the beginner kid that they used to see at the acting, you know, casting director workshops back in the day before I started working. And so I felt like and I was back to kind of having to bust those those myths again. So I thought maybe the best thing to do is, is take the connections that I've made and see if I could start writing and creating my own stuff. And I remember Tim cream was working on heroes at the time, the TV show heroes, and they kept telling me there was going to be something in there for me, and the years were going by, like the second season, there no nothing I decided to write to get the rights to a book called The Gourmet detective. Again, someone comes up to me at a party, right says, What are you doing now that crossing Jordan's over, and I was so tired of people asking me that question. I remember getting quite cranky, but I don't know, I'm going to audition for other stuff. I guess she said, You know, there's a, there's a book I just read called the gourmet detective. You'd be perfect for the lead in, that you should get the rights to it. Then she walked off, and I never saw her since, and I remember looking up that, looking up who had the rights and I got the rights and I got the rights to the book easily, for, like, under $1,000 I got the rights to all eight books. Wow. And actually, all seven books, the original book, which is the main one that we wanted, because it had the title The Gourmet detective, was the rights to that book. It was published by an English publisher. And I remember my lawyer calling me and saying, We can't get the right select Book. He wants too much money. And I said, what's his name? And they were like, his name's Martin breeze. And I went, I know Martin. Martin's A magician. Martin had a magic shop when I was a kid in London.
Unknown:Magic connection again, like you can't
Steve Valentine:write this stuff. And I called Martin. I was like, You don't remember me, but I used to come in once a month when my dad I bought this from you, I bought that from you, from your from your magic studio in London. And by the end of the conversation, he's like, All right, I'll let you have the right sort of book anyway. So I got the rights to gourmet detective, and then I was doing it an episode of monk, and Randy Zisk was the director, and I told him about it, and I was like, I'd love to get you attached as show runner. And he read the book, and he was like, Yeah, let's do it. And we sold it. We just, we sold it, like, three times, and this thing get made. We sold it to USA Network, first of all, and then UAP, and then somewhere else, and we came so close so many times.
Tess Masters:In the end, the business, right, is that's what you sign up for, don't you? When you're a creative person, I mean, we this is the problem. People
Steve Valentine:will think you haven't been working and you have been you've been making pilots. You've been writing
Tess Masters:constantly the whole time I've known you, you know, and just being that jobbing actor. So tell me about deciding now that you you talked about how you don't like people pulling the veil back and showing how magic tricks are done. Yes, take me into the decision to launch magic on the go all those years ago, and deciding you want to show people how to do magic the way that you would like to do it. So I remember looking on your website when you first launched it, and you sent it to me, and you talk on the video about how with magic you. Just need a mentor. You need a guy to show you, you know, how to, how to move through this, which I thought was such a lovely way of of introducing it to someone who wants to enter this world and learn some tricks and and, you know, help people feel all those things that you feel that, which is why you love it so much. So I just remember,
Steve Valentine:so, what do you get out? What's the juice there? Well, I remember having a mentor, how important that was, you know, because they curate the experience for you. A mentor, right? A mentor will take their years of education and experience and tell you what you need to know. And there wasn't that wasn't out there and magic at the time, when I came back into it, it was suffering badly by people weren't reading books as much, they weren't learning the history as much like we stand on the shoulders of these giants, and nobody in the piece of that. They're reinventing everything. And I'm like, Well, that was from 1930s or something. That's not yours. You know, you didn't invent that. But there was this predominance of single trick, what we call single trick DVDs, which is a single trick with a DVD that sold for like, 4050, bucks. And that's how then that generation was learning their magic. And instead of, instead of amassing a wealth of knowledge that so that you can handle anything in any situation, they were learning six tricks and putting them into an act, and that was all they knew. And yeah, I just saw this kind of disrespect for magic, kind of predominating, and it made me sad. So over the course of making the one man show, I had investigated one particular trick, the trick that my mentor had tried to teach me, which was called 10 cards to pocket, which is a really hard trick. I've seen you do that, right? It's bloody, it's brutal, and it's so hard. And what I discovered was there was a time in history where where everyone was doing the trick, everyone in vaudeville. It was a standard, it was a trick everyone was doing. And then slowly through time, people stopped doing it, and I wanted to know why it was like, why? So then I created this project called CTP cards to pocket, which was kind of all the research that I did, put on film. And it was something, something like 120 separate videos, and all of these different ways of doing it, the history. Who did it, who did it first, and who did it like that way, who did it that way, and why, and and it was, it's like a doctorate thesis on on one trick. And I wanted somewhere to put it other than DVD, and it made sense to put it online and make it accessible. And this stuff was just starting the subscription OTT services, and I thought, well, I could put this online. People can subscribe to it. They can watch it on their phone. They can watch it on their on their iPads. They can watch on their computers, no matter where they are in the world. They can refresh. They can learn something new. They can just listen to it while they're driving. Is like all of this, because there's a lot of and as I teach it, they'll get to see it, as opposed to, you know, read it. And in everything I teach, I talk, I talk about everything. I talk about the history performance, how to do it, as well as how to do it. So I feel like I hit all the all the areas that I had to hit when I had a mentor, when he was he would send me away and come back and do it again next week. But better, or how about looking up at me and as you speak, you know, what's your eye contact. Where's your you know, all of those things that we we don't get from just buying a trick on a single trick on a DVD. And so it just grew from there, and it became a place where I would just put all of my creativity. And then when I started kind of looking at the history of magic, and all of these tricks that were getting lost, and all these little old pamphlets and booklets that nobody has any nobody has anymore. I would cherry pick the best things, make it, learn it. So I literally learned, and I've learned and performed every single thing on that website that's over 900 pieces of material, right, sleight of hand, you name it. But also what I discovered, which was amazing was that when you teach something, there is a shortcut that opens up in the back of your brain to creativity, right? So if you sit down and you try and be creative, it's blank page time, right? It's writer's block. But when I learn a trick, and I teach it to camera or to somebody specifically, but normally, just a camera, as I'm speaking, my subconscious is throwing out variations and ideas and and it's just like, it comes out and goes, it kind of comes out of here and goes in here, and I'm like, Oh, and also, you could do this. And hang on a minute. Here's a better idea, literally, while I'm on camera. So it became so teaching became a selfish way of getting new material, because I know that I can teach this older trick. I can figure out how to improve it, so there's a better reason for teaching it, but then all of these other ideas will flourish. So I would say now in my one man show, 90% of what's in that show is original, because it all came like the 10 cards to pocket that i. Do at the end of the show is not at all how my old mentor, Dick Turpin, used to do it. And the ending is completely original, you know? It's just like it all just came out of of teaching. So I, I find it to be probably the most consistent thing I've done in my entire life, because I had new material every month since 2017 you know.
Tess Masters:And it sounds like it's a love letter to Dick. It is
Steve Valentine:a love letter to the art to
Tess Masters:the history. You're You're such a history buff. Like it's what another thing I love about you, like we're having a conversation. Oh, did you know where that comes from? Because, you know, back in the day, blah, blah, blah, blah, they did this. I just go. How does he know all these random facts about history. You're I make
Steve Valentine:no attempt to memorize anything. It's just what sticks. Sticks. I see it with my son. My son was everything about brawl, stars and Pokemon. He can name every single, every single card in the Pokemon deck, what the energy is. But by asking him to remember to tidy your desk at school. It's an issue. You know what? I mean. It's just like the things that you love will stick and yeah, it's and it just
Tess Masters:your memory for history, your love of it, your respect of it. It comes through in everything that
Steve Valentine:you citing. You know, the thing is, with history is like so there's a magic magazine called the magic wand, which went from 1901 to 1945, or so. So like 45 years of this magic magazine that came out every month. So that magazine is a time capsule of how life changed in England over 45 years. It went through a Russian Revolution and two world wars, right? And you see, as you read the articles, if you start the beginning, which is so fun, you read all these articles, and not just how tricks are done, but there's articles on like, you know, is magic dead? What should magicians wear? How I approach stuff? This guy is nicking my material like nothing ever changes. But you get to know the columnists, and then, you know, they'll talk about how this columnist now is, you know, he went off to war. He was conscripted, and he's off to war. And there's one guy, medrington, I remember I got, I loved his columns, and then one day I was reading an issue, and he'd been killed in the war, and it was almost like I was reading it, like it was actually happening then and there, you know, you So you read all these magazines, and it's all this history, like magic tricks that were done with steel. But then there were no there wasn't steel available anymore, so now they had to make them out of Baker like, which was a new kind of plastic. And then, and then they had issues with getting eggs and silk handkerchiefs, and then they had the rationing. And then the guy that makes the magazine business gets blown up in the Blitz. And you just, you just see life through the eyes of their people working as magicians. And I find that fascinating, because
Tess Masters:that is fascinating. So I want to ask you, yeah, as a magician, who celebrates other magicians? I mean, you know, when I'm at the Magic Castle and I see you with your colleagues, you just marvel at each other and celebrate each other, and there's this camaraderie, fraternity, you know, it's so beautiful. Yeah. So how do you feel? Going back full circle to what we were saying about at the beginning, how you love to make people feel like anything is possible, being feeling like a child that's full of possibility, and wonder, what do you feel when you're watching other magicians do a trick that you don't do. Are you able to put yourself in that place of just enjoying and watching it unfold without trying to figure out how they how they do it, or, you know, catching them out. Or what's it like for you as a magician? Experience? It's either
Steve Valentine:very joyful or very painful. So there'll be you. B, if someone shows me something and I and this is what every magician wants to be fooled, right? Because it reminds us why we like
Unknown:it. Pen and Teller on that show where the magicians do the trick and they've got to figure it out. Yeah, I love and if you look at something
Steve Valentine:and you go like, I have no idea what, holy crap. I've not everything. I have no idea what you just did we get that moment. We get that little bit of dopamine that reminds us why we do it. If someone does a trick and they're really horrible as a performer, it's, it is the most painful thing for me to see like it. I know a magician here in town in Toronto, who's, uh, I call him the maestro. He's wonderful, but he doesn't go out. He won't go to a magic show anymore, because he said it's too painful. He said, If I see something, he's I guess, can't stomach it, it's because you love it so much you love the art form. But I, I remember deciding, when I decided to get back into magic. I hadn't been to the Magic Castle in 10 years, and I remember going back up there for the first time and thinking, like, Oh, are they going to think I'm a dick because I stopped going or because I renounced the magic, or because, you know, and I remember walking in and just everybody being like, Yo, Steve, where you been? We're so proud of you. You know, it was so lovely. It was so heartwarming. We don't have that in acting. In acting, I can't walk into a bar. And a bunch of actors go, Oh, it's great to see you. No, they're like, why are you in town? What were you? What you auditioning for? You taking my parts, you know, that's what we but in magic, I can travel the world. I can go to a magic shop, like in Auckland. I did it in Argentina. I went to a magic shop in Argentina. Said, Hi, I was filming something there. And they ended up like, taking me, taking me out for dinner, showing me Buenos Aires. You know, I'm we have this, and now I'm going to go in July, I'll be in Italy, in Torino, I was asked to give a talk at the world championships of magic, which is called vism. I'm going to go and give a lecture there. And you know that just love, they're like, come early. It's Italy. Stay late, you know? Like, enjoy, will show you around. And this is one of the greatest parts of being a magician, is that that camaraderie that comes with it. Emily like, I mean, not to say there's a lot, not a lot of dysfunction, because there is, there can be, you know, there can be clicks, and there can be all that kind of crap. But at the same time I do, I do enjoy that, where I can be in a city and someone will say, I'm a magician. Let's have lunch.
Tess Masters:I love it. Oh, look, I could talk to you all day long, as we have done many days and nights, as we have talk the day and the night
Steve Valentine:away. I gotta say, I gotta say Tess, because this is what about me, right? Why not me? Why not me? Yeah, I want to tell you this because there was a why not me moment in my life that I'll never forget. I always had when I was trying to break in as an actor, this quiet confidence that something somewhere would be right for me and would show up. I just always believed it. And I remember I was doing this acting workshop. I don't know if you ever did real pros. Did you ever do that? There was a, Oh,
Unknown:I did those workshops
Steve Valentine:rip offs where you have to basically pay to see a casting director. Yes, you do a scene and you get a I'm doing air quotes here for the audience, critique. If the person can even stay awake during class, and they I remember doing a lot of these, and I was doing one one day, and this guy comes up to me, and he's like, I've got to ask you a question. I was like, yeah. And he goes, Do you really think you're going to work as an actor? And I said, What? He goes, Do you really think you could break in? And I said, Yeah, why not? And he said, Well, he said, Look at me. Said I'm short, I'm fat and bald, I'm Jewish. He said, I can play doctors. I can play lawyers. He said, there's all of these different parts that I can play. He said I was just thinking, you know, just coming from a place of reality, like, what kind of roles Could you play? Is it? You're tall, you're skinny, you got long hair, big forehead, large teeth. You know, he's like, I just don't, you know to this day, I don't know why he felt the need to say this to me, but I remember being angry for a second, and then just saying to him, something's going to come along. I just know it will, I said Jack Nicholson was famous because he couldn't get work, and then he became his own type. Maybe I'll become my own type. You know, a role will come up where I'm the perfect guy for that. And then it wasn't, maybe six months later that I got crossing Jordan, and one day, I think it was season two, who comes in as a guest star to play a lawyer. And I it was the universe gave me this moment. But the universe also said, how are you going to handle it? Right? Here's a challenge, please. I was so lovely. I was like, let me show you around. So great to see you. Introduce them to everyone. Showed them where craft service was. And then I just had my one moment where I said, Okay, this is my trailer. I need to go work on my lines, but I'll see you on set. And I just kind of left them back. And I also made sure that I walked in past my car park spot. Because one of the greatest things it was totally gracious. I didn't, I didn't even point it out. I didn't have to, but I I walked it past. Because one of the things that happens when you're on the television series is is everyone's excited to be there. Season One, I remember telling an actor this when he's like, he's getting a show, and he's like, can you give me some advice? And I was like, well, season one, you can't believe you're on a television series, right? You can't you do it for free, but you don't want to tell anyone. You just you can't believe you're on TV. Season two, you're excited. You've come back for season two. You'd like to have a little more writing, but that's okay, because you're really happy, and maybe, maybe you'll get a new car, so you upgrade your car, right? And you've got your parking space sign, finally, you've got your sign your parking space so you feel like you've made it season three. Now you're hoping for renegotiation money, because the show is doing really, really well, and they're not paying you enough for the work that you're putting in. But damn it, I guess, I guess we'll just keep going. Hopefully we'll get season four and you upgrade your car again. Season Four. You are, fuck this. I want to do movies, and you're like, god damn it, I wish they'd write less. And I'm just, I got my personal chef needs to, needs to go home early, and I got a party, and I'm dating this girl, and season five, you can't wait to be out of there. This is like the general trajectory of an actor on a television series, and then the show gets canceled, and you wished you were on a television series again. But that's because the thing that happens is no one can prepare you for what it feels like to get a television series The first time. There is nothing anybody can say it is a psychological mind fuck, because you go from being a struggling actor when no one cared to suddenly being number 234, on the call list. Everyone's pandering to your needs because they need you there on time. They want to make sure you're happy, healthy. Can get the work done. It's, it's, it's a whole nother vibe. So unless you've got a you've got good control on who you are as a human being, it's going to go to your head. You're going to get and I, I can I, I can tell as an actor who's on a television series, like if I meet an actor, I can tell you whether they're in a series currently, or whether they've been on a series. When they've been on a series, there's a certain understanding and awareness of the world and how things can come and go, maybe even a slight bitterness when, when it's their first series, like the world is their oyster, their cocky that everyone's, you know, they wear $1,000 clothes. There's just their skin looks amazing. Their hair looks amazing because they're going through the Hollywood car wash on a daily basis. And it's and it's and it's true. So the other thing that it does is you find out who your friends are, right? Because when you get a television series, there's going to be people who are incredibly happy for you. They don't want anything, they're just happy for you. They're they're the people that always supported you. They're the people who kind of knew it was going to happen. To happen at some point. Then you get the people who are incredibly jealous, who can't help but let it be known that you don't deserve to be where you are. Those people drop off because they just can't stand being around you. Then there are those who will try and use you. A number of people who would send their headshots to casting and say, I'm a friend of Steve Valentine's without asking me if I would refer them, you know. And then there are those who, who are the narcissists who feel the need to try and control you, and those are the ones who say things like, don't let it go to your head. Don't try and be a big timer, don't, you know, don't get cocky now. You know, because they're afraid that you are bigger than them, or it is going to your head, or that you've you've exceeded who they are. And the reality is, and I, and because I've said this to so many people I know who have got serious is you have to change. If you get a tell it when you become successful in any business you have to change. I'm sure tests now is a different test to when you first started the business, because you've learned so much about business, people, promotion industry, how not to waste your time, friendship, right?
Tess Masters:Absolutely. But I think that ultimately, it doesn't matter what industry you're in, how much money you make, how successful you are, who you know, whatever, to me, you know, like you having met huge stars, being around people from all walks of life, people that have no not two cents to rub together, all the way up to billionaires. It's still the universal truth, which is just be good to yourself and be good to other people, yeah, you know, and be honest and generous of spirit. And so to me, you know, I, I just go back to the same core of what my parents taught me as a child, you know. And you know, you know me because we're friends, you know, my goodness, I've made millions of dollars. I've had $67 in my bank account. You know what I mean? Like, it's just completely run the gamut for me, as I know it has for you. Yeah. And so really, you know, I always think about what's the big takeaway from from a conversation with someone? And you know, our conversation today has really been about staying present, noticing the magic, looking for the signs, you know, and being honest and true to who you are, you know. And I think that ultimately, regardless of what happens, you know, and that the marketing 101, right, that no one's going to do it for you. You've got to use your voice and put it out there, you know. I mean, you and I have spoken about this many times together. So I always close every episode with the same question, which is, for someone who has a dream in their heart, which is all of us, but doesn't feel like they have what it takes to make it happen, what would you say to them?
Steve Valentine:Well, you have what it takes to make it happen first of all. So if I can make. It anyone can. My story is I came from a small town in south bend on sea and ended up on a Hollywood television series with no formal training. If I can do that, if I can bullshit my way onto a network show, anyone can do anything. I'm not. I'm not a gorgeous, handsome guy. I'm a character actor. I'm not a Brad Pitt, an English accent in an American world, but somehow, if you I had a belief in myself, that somehow, somewhere along the lines, if I kept at it, if I kept present, if I stayed in town, if I stayed away, aware it would happen and not You can't sit on your laurels and wait for the phone to ring. That was one of the biggest lessons. You do have to be working all the time towards your goal, whether it's skill sets or connections or whatever. But if I can do it, and I'm no one with no connections anywhere, everyone listening here today can can do anything. I really believe it, and I I prove it to myself time and time again, because I jump into arenas that I shouldn't be in feet first, and learn on the way, like writing scripts or pitching television shows or now I'm going to start a podcast, which I've never done before, you know. So it's like doing something, right? Because, you know, but you got,
Tess Masters:why not? Me going back to what you were saying before.
Steve Valentine:How many people here raise your hands in the podcast world have listened to a really bad podcast, right? You can do better, right? Okay, so there you go. That's how I feel about everything. I've seen great actors. I've seen shitty actors who get a lot of work. I'm like, Well, then why not me? All right, I've seen good magicians. I've seen I've seen not very good magicians who are working all the time. So I'm pretty good, so why not me, right? So just, I think that mantra is so powerful, and that moment when the guy says to me, like, did you really think you're going to make it? Why not? I was like, why not. Why not me, you know, and that's yes, and I've just seen the proof again. I'm
Tess Masters:gonna say that to myself today, because I'm struggling with something right now. So why not me? I love it. This is like, set me on fire. Oh, thank you so much. I love you. I
Steve Valentine:love you too. Oh, this has been great. I could talk to you forever, and I probably would if you didn't shut me down.
Tess Masters:Well, we will continue and have many more conversations, but I
Steve Valentine:look forward to it for this one. All right. All right, darling. Bye. Now. Bye, everybody, go, go, go, go. Get your dreams. I.