Over the course of his lengthy profession, magician and endurance performer David Blaine has taken on every kind of death-defying feats: catching a bullet in his enamel, fasting for 44 days, or holding his breath for a record-breaking 17 minutes and 4 seconds, to call a couple of. Viewers will get to see a distinct aspect of Blaine as he travels the world to satisfy kindred spirits from a variety of cultures in David Blaine Do Not Try, a brand new six-episode docuseries from Nationwide Geographic.
(Some spoilers beneath.)
The sequence was shot over three calendar years (2022-2024) in 9 totally different international locations, and options Blaine interacting with, and studying from, all method of daredevils, athletes, avenue performers, and magicians. In Southeast Asia, as an illustration, he watches practitioners of an Indonesian martial artwork known as Debus manipulate razor blades of their mouths and eat nails. (There isn’t any trick to this, simply conditioned endurance to ache, as Blaine discovers when he makes an attempt to eat nails: his throat was sore for days.) He braves inserting scorpions on his physique, breaks a bottle along with his head, and units himself on hearth in Brazil whereas leaping off a excessive bridge.
One of many components that units this sequence other than Blaine’s earlier magical specials is his willingness to be filmed training and coaching to do the varied featured stunts, together with early failed makes an attempt. This makes him appear extra susceptible and immensely likable—even when it made him personally uncomfortable throughout filming.
Nationwide Geographic
David Blaine and Amandeep Singh put together to interrupt bottles with their fists.
Nationwide Geographic
Nationwide Geographic/Aditya Kapoor
Hearth Ramesh demonstrates spitting a fireball for Blaine.
Nationwide Geographic/Aditya Kapoor
Blaine performs a triple suicide slide with Sam Sam Thubane and Kayla Oliphant
Blaine performs a triple suicide slide with Sam Sam Thubane and Kayla Oliphant
Hearth Ramesh demonstrates spitting a fireball for Blaine.
Nationwide Geographic/Aditya Kapoor
Blaine performs a triple suicide slide with Sam Sam Thubane and Kayla Oliphant
Nationwide Geographic/Doug McKenzie
Nationwide Geographic
“I’ve at all times stored that half hidden,” Blaine instructed Ars. “Usually I work for a couple of years and I develop [a stunt] till I really feel fairly good about it, after which I am going and do the stunt and push myself so far as potential. However on this situation, it was so many locations, so many individuals, so many occasions, so many feats, so many issues to study so quick. So it was me in a method that I by no means appreciated to indicate myself: awkward and uncomfortable and screaming and laughing. It is the issues that as a magician, I at all times conceal. As a magician, I attempt to be very monotone and let the viewers react, however I used to be in that viewers reacting. So for this sequence, I used to be the spectator to the magic, and it was for me very uncomfortable. However I used to be watching these superb performers—what I think about to be magicians.”