Derren Brown

When touring I get to travel around with my best friends, do a show I love and I'm confident people will enjoy, and have all the adrenalin that comes with performing. ”

Everything you do is about creating an experience in the viewer's head. If you're rude or irritating as a performer, then your magic is irritating. ”

The joy of doing the TV or something like 'Sacrifice' isn't really the process of doing it; the joy is going through this real-life experience. ”

Feeling we have to be constantly updated about the lives of our friends and that everything we say has to be out there leads to frustration, anger and jealousy much more than it leads to anything else. ”

I'm very interested in how we take ownership of our own stories and our own lives. ”

In real life, when I can avoid anything stressful, I do. ”

I don't want to be some extreme therapist. Although seeing someone's life change for the better is a really moving thing. ”

Suggestibility is a very loose term. You may not be the sort of person who responds well to a hypnotist on stage, but you might find, for example, that a doctor administering a placebo to you is something you respond well to. ”

It's a controlling thing on stage - you're directing the action, getting people to play their role. In real life, I take being kind and nice seriously, so the last thing I'd ever want to be is that weird, controlling, manipulative character. ”

Taking up magic was a distraction from my sexuality. There is that 1970s cliche of the gay man as hairdresser, interior decorator, fashionista... and all of those things are about arranging surfaces in a very dazzling way - and magic is all about how you arrange surfaces. I got very good at deflecting people from things I didn't want them to see. ”