Hocus-Pocus! Meet the Magician that is Enchanting Beijing

Oldies but goodies, dear reader. I love me a timeless bop, like The Lovin’ Spoonful’s "Do You Believe in Magic". Those lyrics may have been penned in 1965, but they fit me fine and dandy for this blog post in 2024. You know how the song goes, and though I don’t know that magic will indeed free your soul, who knows—it worked like a social charm of sorts for the man I am about to introduce to you today. 

If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Fred Castelbranco, then you probably agree with my choice to feature him in this article, though I shall confess I am reluctant. If this interview is his irrevocable catapult to fame as an adept illusionist, maybe he’ll be too popular for me to find him again at random on a beautiful, scintillating Beijing night. It was one such evening when we met a year ago. This smiley, well-dressed Portuguese guy fanned his deck of cards under the dim lights at The Golden Weasel, and all of a sudden that tempting bottle of Pinotage had to compete for our attention with Fred’s intriguingly smooth magic. Pick a card, he would say, and please cut the deck wherever you see fit. Was this ace of spades the card you were thinking of? I figured as much. Gasps ensued. 

On that fateful night, I was wise enough to realize that I could never catch the flicker of his hands and that I would be wiser if I just marveled at the show. Fred is good at magic, that’s for sure, and as a filmmaker, it only makes sense that he can share his own story on equally enticing terms. So sit down all cozy, pour yourself a cup of mulled wine since the weather’s getting chilly, and get to know Fred the Magician. I’m not pulling bunnies out of my top hat here, myself—this is one bewitching interview.

Hi, Fred. This chat has been a long time in the making! How exciting to have you here. Introduce yourself to the crowd, please. What brought you to Beijing? And where does magic fit in your life here?
Hi there! Well, long story short, after a few different stints in China, Switzerland, Italy, and the UK, I came back to Beijing in early 2020 (I know) with a resolution to really pursue my love of filmmaking. Beijing has always afforded me the best balance of time and opportunities to make that dream a reality. And then, there’s magic. Magic nowadays inhabits that liminal space between a hobby and a second job. I love performing magic. It’s a really fulfilling creative practice, one that has opened some great doors for me in Beijing. Magic has granted me the chance to meet some great people. It has also exposed me to new crowds and experiences.

As a matter of fact, magic predates your current occupation, right? One could say you grew up along with your magic. 
Yes, I’ve been performing magic for nearly 20 years now, and my relationship with it has changed through those two decades. The beginning of my story is one that I believe a lot of magicians share.

Back in my high school days, I was a young, introverted teen. To be quite frank, my social skills were woefully underdeveloped, at least in comparison to my peers. But I was about to undergo a transformation of sorts. Back then, American magician and mentalist David Blaine was a newcomer to the scene with a new, laid back and street-cool approach to magic. A friend came across a few of his online video tutorials, and we were engrossed by them. Something clicked with me in particular. 

Initially, my introverted side was really attracted by the solitary practice of magic. But here’s the thing—as time and performances went by, I realized that I was finally training those social muscles that I’d sorely needed to develop. First, it was just my friends as the audience, which then grew to include my classmates and the school at large. And there I was, having fun in this safe and controlled environment where I got to control my own tricks and performances. In due time, this proved to be a critical soft launching pad for me to just adjust better socially. Though I will say this realization would only come to me in hindsight. 
Because I thankfully no longer needed magic as a social crutch by then, college did bring a bit of a hiatus for me in that department. But the hobby lingered until it was time for it to bloom again. I carry a deck of cards everywhere with me, as I always have since like 2005. If you hang around yours truly long enough, you’re bound to see me perform at some point. Everyone knows me as a magician; I’m just THAT guy, you know? And Beijing has afforded me the opportunity to pursue it even further into the professional realm.

So, it kind of feels natural to me that my relationship with magic has evolved into this semi-professional dimension in the last few years.  

Such an unexpected tool to navigate the social awkwardness of our early years, and how great that you got to keep magic in your life in new ways. How would you say that your current motivation connects with that past spark?
That’s a great question. Magic, I believe, is a medium for me to explore some of what I find the most fulfilling.  This is because magic represents an engagement of the private and the public for me. I bridge the gap between both through my practice. On a private, personal basis, I get to research all this arcane, obscure knowledge that flows through interesting secrets, stories and techniques. I am endlessly fascinated by things like the world of card cheating and conmen. 

I then get to channel this practice into fun—for myself, but also for others. I get a huge kick out of performing complex sleight of hand. It allows me to spin fun stories for others, and then they turn to their friends to share them, with this look of disbelief on their face, long after I am gone.  

But wait, what is your magic about? 
Can magic have a meaning? That’s a serious question that I have been pondering lately ever since I read Shawn DeSouza-Coelho’s Magic as Medium. I think magic occupies a strange place in the performing arts, somewhere between juggling and… I don’t know, one-man performance art theatre? 

So maybe it’s best to tackle your question by talking about the kind of magic that I perform, as well as what I aspire to achieve through it. Often, though not exclusively, I perform card magic, with a focus on gambling sleight of hand. Yes, those are the techniques that card cheats use to manipulate card games and win money (not that that’s my goal!). I dabble in some mentalism here and there, as well as other older illusions. But cards are definitely my bread and butter.

When I perform, no matter the audience I aim to bring people in to experience a secret. I want them to feel like they’re getting a peek into a world they had no idea existed. This is a cool moment that we’re sharing together, as though they were being brought into a secret club by an old friend. That’s why my tricks are often accompanied by stories I’ve picked up over the years. I’d like to think they accentuate these special moments. They help the audience engage.  

Ultimately, we all know that our world is governed by a series of rules that render it solid and, let’s be real, less mysterious as we grow older and understand more of it. My magic is a chance for me to show you something impossible. For a split second, I can bring back that sense of wonder and joy that comes with seeing the world burst with the impossible once again. 

Your shows certainly transmit some of that. Is there an ideal audience?
Weirdly enough, magic may be the only performing art where the more often you’re told, and I quote, to “f*ck off!”, the more certain you can be that you’re doing well. People’s expletives are the highest of endorsements!

In all seriousness, I hope that audiences approach magic much like I do, as a fun shared moment that helps us marvel at the mysteries and secrets of the world. There’s this strange, unspoken pact between a magician and the audience. The former is really an actor pretending to be a magician, and the latter knows the former holds no dark and mysterious powers. And yet, the skill of the former and the curiosity of the latter makes it so that this illusion is sustained for a precious impossibility to come alive between hands and minds. I’ve had people watch me perform and later refer to me as “the devil” to a friend, and that tells me it was a good show. I love an audience that is willing to engage with mystery and wonder.

On that note, that’s why I don’t do kids’ shows. Not that there aren’t plenty of wonderful magicians that do. Kids believe in magic, and I’m looking to amaze the skeptics.

Speaking of people, who’s your main influence? Your idol, if you will.
So you’re making me choose one? Well then, Ricky Jay. He was a prolific character actor, but few realize that he was also the ultimate sleight of hand card magician of the century. A remarkable historian and scholar to boot, with incredible shows that reflected his many qualities. He sadly passed a few years ago, but I still study his effects, and I wish I could have seen him perform in person.

Guy Hollingworth is on my list, too—a magician’s magician, with a fascinating and highly personal approach to magic. An intellectual property lawyer by trade, he’s legendary for his refined magic, á la Channing Pollock in the 1950s. I look up to him very much. 

Damn, let me name a third guy. Argentinian René Lavand only had one hand, but that was more than enough for him to perform beautifully, mixing poetry into his shows. Nobody has ever made magic quite like he did.  

I know that you devote quite a significant amount of time to mastering your art in every sense of the word. Tell us, what does that look like for a magician?
There are many ways to get to a final effect, which is what us magicians call tricks.  Sometimes research is the name of the game, and I conduct mine through my extensive magic library featuring around a hundred books. Sometimes I’m spurred by someone else’s trick to put my own spin on it. And the most fun happens when everything starts at the end result. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could do *this*, I tell myself, and then I go reverse engineer it to see whether the idea is feasible. 

Last but not least, endless refining. You’re never done with a final effect. I am always looking to make it 5 percent better next time.

How many decks do you own, by the way? Do you ever play favorites? I remember a really beautiful Japanese deck that evoked one of their traditional woodwork methods…
I easily own upwards of 50 decks of cards. Vanity decks are the fate of every magician—upscale objets d’art that are beautifully designed and cost you a pretty penny. Guess what? You invariably end up not using them because you don’t want to wreck them. 

I didn’t escape my fate, so my collection includes some vanity decks like the one you mentioned (pictured below), which is inspired by Japanese yosegi woodworking techniques. Though my very favorites are probably Theory 11’s Red Monarchs. Gorgeous case and back designs that feel elevated but not too cheesy nor gaudy, and you can buy them on Taobao as a plus. Do they match my nice burgundy suit? Yes, they do, but I promise it’s a happy coincidence. 

I buy my decks because they handle great, look gorgeous, and suit whatever my style. I really like the aesthetics of playing cards, so much so that I had a wonderful piece of artwork based on them commissioned by Thomas Verbal, a terrific graphic designer based in Beijing. It now hangs in my office, where I work on my magic.

Nowadays, you are available to hire for private events and shows, such as the most recent edition of the British Ball and the Danish end of Summer Party. What’s the difference between your smaller, spur-of-the-moment intimate shows and these larger scale events? 
The main difference lies in the tension between the more intimate improvisation of walkaround magic, and the more ambitious orchestration of my staged performances. You mentioned the British Ball, and there I went for a more free-flowing type of magic that is actually not all that different from my impromptu shows at The Golden Weasel. In shows like those, I will be walking around, performing for smaller groups of people, and I will run through effects at will based on the mood I perceive, sometimes even improvising. 

There’s something very pure and direct to this method. The immediacy of it just enhances the magic, because the audience is right there, able to interact directly with the cards and with me. And then there’s the larger, more formal stage show version of my performances. This is the space for more ambitious ideas that I need to tackle differently, because I am trying to reach an audience in the hundreds potentially. Here, I can explore a greater complexity in my effects, as well as a more ambitious, longer-form storytelling. After all, the audience is there just to see my magic show.  

But I do admit that freeform intimate style is my favorite. There’s just something to be said about leaving an audience really scratching their heads at the impossibility of a final effect where they just know that the magician couldn’t possibly have every detail in the situation controlled. 

You’ve pursued unique experiences beyond your magic, such as skydiving. What moves you for those? Is it the same that compels you in cinema, or in your magic shows?
Because I love stories, I try to seek them out. That, and I do have a penchant for pushing myself in unusual ways. A friend of mine once made this observation that shocked me, because how did it never occur to myself? She pointed out that my passions often seem to inhabit this hybrid territory between the private and the public. She was right on the money.

In film and in magic, the focus on perfecting my work is intensely solitary. However, the final product can only be realized in full when it’s brought out into the world and I manifest it in collaboration with a team and an audience. Skydiving kind of follows that same pattern, except slightly reversed. There’s a certain degree of camaraderie on the ground when you’re talking and learning your way. But once you jump off that plane? It’s just you, all alone up there, working on getting better at this new, exciting thing. 
Where magic and film overlap is in the directing of the audience’s attention when telling a story. Both directors and magicians are forever directing the audience’s attention to arrive at a climax of emotional impact. And the more skilled I become at it in one area, the more fluent I am in it in the other.

Before we part, how should anyone go about hiring you and staying updated about your shenanigans? Do you have anything particularly exciting lined up for this season? 
For the foreseeable future, dropping by The Golden Weasel on a Friday night is an almost surefire way to see me perform. I am indebted to the Weasel because they’ve always been awesome to me, as well as crucial to my current rhythm of production in my magical output. Go grab yourself a great cocktail, say you’re looking for the magician, and they’ll point you my way. 

Should you want to reach out for a potential performance, feel free to do so directly through my WeChat (ID FCastelbranco). Though you could also book a consultation via my brand new website (www.the-cardsharp.com)! Choosing a name for it (check out that wink to Caravaggio!) was just one of the many details I had to finesse before the launch. I’m really excited to have it up and running now. 

As for upcoming shows, we’re heading into party season! You will find me performing at a few international balls before the year comes to a close. Some private events are also calling my name, and I have been working on a stage show that I will preview near the end of the year, with hopes for a full theatrical run early in 2025. The location’s still a secret, but watch this space! 

READ: Crafting Memories: A Chat with Jeweler Antonia Sampson

Photos courtesy of Fred Castelbranco