Keith Barry

If you've got creativity, imagination, and intelligence, and you want to be hypnotised, then there's no reason you shouldn't be able to.

For me, I live for performing live because people look at magicians on television, and they always wonder, 'Is it a camera trick?' 'Is it a stooge?' whereas, live, they know there's no set-ups; there's no stooges.

I remember hearing Will Smith, back when he was just a rapper, saying, 'When all the other rap stars are in bed, I'm practicing my rapping.' I try to be like that. There is always something to improve.

I want to bring magic back to where it started, which is not about the props, and it's not about me as a magician: it's about the audience and playing with their minds and playing with their perception of magic and having fun with it.

There's a lot of different styles of hypnosis. There's conversational hypnosis, which, even though we joke about it, politicians use conversational hypnosis. I've been hired back at home in Ireland by certain politicians to assist them in specific language patterns that will just tip people over into their, you know, into their zone.

I believe everyone has the ability to be hypnotised, and I think, on different days, different people will have varying levels of susceptibility.

I've trained with trainers in L.A., and they get complacent. They're used to dealing with celebrity egos, so they cotton-wool you a bit.

I haven't hypnotised a whole lot of celebrities, because they're fearful of it.

We're able to use certain techniques to get people to behave in certain ways. We're able to use certain techniques to make it look like we're reading minds, even though we're not.

Once people enjoy what I do, I don't mind if they call me a magician or an illusionist or a hypnotist, entertainer, comedian, whatever people want to call me. I'm comfortable with all of the above, so I don't really mind at all what people want to call me.

If you feel depressed, go and buy twenty books about depression. Learn about it; find out how it works.

I'm a terrible sleeper because I work all the time. I stay up late almost every night working, whether it's on a TV or live show. I come up with new ideas, do research, watch loads of TED talks, or find psychology articles.