Mat Franco: AGT Winner’s Journey from Stage to Magic Empire Revealed | DSH #1549

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Usually, I think, even in the stand-up comedy, when someone's yelling out and like trying to participate in the show like that, like they think that they are contributing, they think that they're adding.

They don't realize.

They have no micro.

They're just like a faceless voice shouting out, These people paid to see you.

The power dynamic really exists.

Okay, guys, Matt Franco here today.

Let's go, man.

How you doing?

You're doing well.

I know that.

You too.

Nice to see you.

Yeah, just one magician of the year.

Yeah, that's right.

What's a good year for you, huh?

It has been good so far, but we're just getting started.

Nice.

What's exciting this year for you, and what do you got planned?

10-year anniversary of the show coming up in just a couple of months, so that's kind of crazy.

Wow.

Don't know exactly what we're going to do for it yet, to be honest, but it's exciting.

Not all the shows make it that long.

Right.

10-year residency.

And honestly, it just gets more fun and just gets better.

I love doing it.

What would you attribute the longevity, the success of that to?

I don't know what the secret sauce is, to be honest.

It's kind of a lightning in a bottle thing, and I just do my best to keep that bottle shut, keep that lightning going.

I think the truth is, though, always reinventing, always keeping it different, always staying present in the moment.

I love that.

How much has the show changed since the first one in 2016?

So much.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'd probably cringe if I were to watch the opening night.

Heck, I might even cringe if I watched like two months ago.

It's hard for me to like watch myself perform.

Are you hard on yourself?

Yeah, yeah.

I think, you know, we can all be our own worst critic.

But

yeah, I think it's changed regularly.

It kind of has had a few different lives since the opening.

We revamped it heavily during the pandemic.

We revamped it again just two years ago.

And now my notebook is full of ideas for whatever the next.

iteration of it is.

So always, always kind of keeping it flowing, keeping the hits in, and then adding new stuff.

What's the hardest part about the show?

I don't know that there is a hard part per se because, I mean, this is what I signed up for.

This is what I grew up wanting to do.

If I didn't enjoy doing it, I think everything about it would be hard.

But I think the fact that I enjoy it, it really

is tough to take for granted.

Good answer.

It's that famous quote, like, if you enjoy what you do, you're never working.

Yeah, yeah.

And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of time taken up and a lot of devotion to it, but it's enjoyable.

You know, the hard thing now is work-life balance because I got a couple of kids, you know, a newborn and a two-year-old.

So the work-life balance makes it interesting.

But we do the best we can.

Kids and five animals.

Yes.

Four dogs and

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Cat.

Yeah, that's right.

We've got a house full of rescues.

How much does that cat get bullied in that house of four dogs?

The cat bullies the dogs.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, we had the cat before all of them.

Okay.

So he's kind of like the alpha in a way.

Yeah, I love cats.

My fiancé's allergic.

Oh, really?

Also, I would have had at least three.

Yeah, I think I'm also allergic, but it is what it is.

Well, you're allergic to rabbits.

I know that.

Yes.

I think anything with short fur like that, but yeah, I take the Claridin if I need to, not an ad.

Even dogs, though?

I think certain ones with like shorter hair, yeah.

But I've had dogs my whole life, so I just kind of, I haven't had an allergy test since I was like a teenager, but back then, you know, I don't know how they do it now.

They poke your shoulder with like a shot almost.

Yeah, they basically, whatever you're allergic to, they all kind of bubble up.

And all of mine bubbled up.

Dust, dogs, cats, everything.

So that was a long time ago.

So it probably changes coming out to Vegas.

Yeah.

Who knows?

First time I got allergies was in Vegas.

Do you take something for it?

Nah, I'm trying to be natural, honestly.

It's a controversial take these days.

But yeah, I try to be like just holistic.

Good for you.

Yeah.

But I know like the local honey works on some people.

Yes, I've heard about that.

Yeah.

I gave that to my dog because my dog, we took an allergy test.

He's allergic to

what are the trees, the palm trees here?

I think they're pain tree.

I just think they're from palm trees.

Yeah.

He's allergic to those.

Okay.

And we have 50 at my house wow so he was just yes yeah yeah

and it worked though I think it worked there you go it's the magic potion is the local honey then yeah he loves to swim yeah I love dogs man me too bring me a lot of happiness absolutely

so what age did you would would you call yourself a magician like would you label yourself that I was doing it in kindergarten damn show and tell Early yeah i had these three little tricks i brought in for show and tell i don't know if any of them worked or if i i'm sure i didn't have any idea what what I was doing, but that was, you know, that's my earliest memory of doing magic for people that were outside of my house, outside of my own family and friends.

You did it right in the family?

Were you?

Not at all.

No, the only magician in the family.

In fact, everyone in my family runs if there's even a camera around.

Like no one wants their picture taken.

No one wants to be on camera.

I guess it's just me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what triggered that, you think?

For me?

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe.

Like a specific show you watched or anything.

Oh, well, certainly for magic in general.

Yeah, there were some magic shows I saw on television growing up.

We were just talking before we went on the air about a show called World's Greatest Magic, which was on NBC, which was a

kind of like my Bible growing up.

So I V8, I taped them on the V V C R, you know, the old VHS tapes.

I've heard of those.

Right?

You've probably never used one.

Never.

Have you seen one in person?

Is that the black rectangular thing?

They're black and rectangular.

This is unbelievable.

This is fantastic.

Your dad had one?

Yeah.

This is great.

I still have a whole bin of all of them.

Wow.

But I digitize them.

So I can go back and watch anything if I want to.

How did you digitize it?

I think I just sent them out.

Oh.

There are companies now that advertise that they digitize these VHS tapes.

Yeah, I grew up on DVDs.

I had a friend do a bunch of them and some.

Oh, DVDs?

Yeah, this is going.

I know what a DVD is.

Describe, oh, the circle one.

Absolutely.

CDs?

Did you have CDs or not?

CDs.

Were those the ones?

Wow, this is incredible.

Circle, right?

Those Those were the same as a DVD, but they're just for audio.

I heard of them.

I never used it, though.

Okay.

Wow.

This is great.

I actually did a whole CD act when I was like 15, like a magic act.

I was producing CDs.

You know why?

Because at the time it was modern and cool.

Wow.

Yeah, those went away pretty quick, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that act wouldn't age well, but it is what it is.

What replaced the CD?

Was it the iPod?

Or was that way after?

Yeah, no, MP3 players.

There was probably something called like a Zune in between there.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not really like an early adopter so i don't remember the exact order but after cds was some kind of mp3 players popped in so i pods where i started oh gotcha yeah okay and not the it was the one with the circle you had to like use your thumb and yeah yeah well you yeah yeah i remember that was the first generation i think yeah yeah that's what i started with then they became touch screen gotcha and then i got the iphone well i don't think you missed anything you you know the the mp3s don't skip the cds would actually skip like if you try to go running

not skip it would you don't even know what skip means oh my god this is crazy Yeah, so like the music would be playing like this.

And while you're running, it would just go

and it would stop and then like start playing again.

Oh, that's annoying.

Yeah, really annoying.

What caused it to do that?

Any movement at all?

Oh.

Wow.

I hope some of your listeners can really appreciate what I'm saying.

I really do.

Can't relate to that.

Fantastic.

Well, everything evolves, right?

Magic's come a long way.

It has.

Yeah, I think magic evolves pretty quickly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to talk about your AGT run.

Sure.

What was the mindset going into that?

the mindset was, let me get some TV footage.

I had never done TV before.

I was performing primarily on college campuses and I knew that I'd book more gigs across the country if I had some TV credit.

So I was just hoping to get put on for one round or even just 30 seconds or on T V and then I could use that in my promo material.

That was the goal.

Wow.

And next thing you know, I kept getting voted through to the next round and the next round.

So, you know, I started taking taking it each round more seriously as it progressed because i didn't think i actually had a chance to win this thing and then just kept getting voted through and had to kind of outdo myself week after week so it was really a daunting task probably psychological torture is the best way to put it yeah you know that's because it's this mix of reality television and it's a competition show and it's this

you know it's theatrical in a way because it's live on stage in front of thousands of people not to mention millions at home so really a

difficult environment to thrive in for many.

But now it just feels like home because I've been, you know, going and doing it for 10 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The stakes are high, right?

Yeah.

Messed up your eyes.

When you're competing on the show, it's the stakes are very, very high.

And honestly, even just going on to do guest spots, it's live in front of millions of people.

So, you know, the pressure's always on.

You got to bring your A-game.

Wow.

But I like that.

Yeah.

So you had no idea you'd make it that far.

That's crazy.

I didn't, you know, at that time, no magician had won before.

So I really didn't think it was possible for a magician to win.

There had been eight seasons.

You know, this was the ninth season of the show on NBC, and singers won very often.

And I was up against a singer in the final, too.

So I kind of thought this was a great run.

Oh, you were calling a quits at second place?

Yeah, not quits, but when you're up there and you see who the other act is and there's nobody else left standing and you know how many singers have won, you know, 80% singers willing for the first, you know, eight seasons, You go, okay, well, this was, this was fun.

And then they call your name, and it's hard to put into words the rest.

Wow.

Yeah.

Who was the singer?

Emily West.

Yeah.

Out of Tennessee, I believe.

Yeah.

She was, she is, is, is an amazing, amazing vocalist, and she had,

you know, amazing, amazing tracks on there.

And then a few magicians won after you won.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think a couple.

Shannon and

Dustin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's great.

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I find that once you make it over here to Vegas, those who were your competitors become your community.

So I've done great collaborations with Dustin, with Shin.

Everyone's like pretty close.

It's a small,

the magic community is so small.

So it's cool.

Even just growing up

in magic, you really do get to meet your heroes,

which is cool.

Who are your heroes growing up?

Lance Burton was a big TV and Las Vegas magician.

He had a show at the Monte Carlo for a number of years.

I think it was like a big $100 million contract at the time, which made a lot of press that people still talk about, especially at that time.

So he was a big inspiration.

Jeff McBride, who we chatted about off air,

was on NBC's World's Greatest Magic as well.

And then another magician, Bill Malone, who's a comedy magician out of Florida,

was a huge inspiration.

Those were a big three.

And there are so many more.

Penn and Teller.

The list goes on and on.

David Copperfield, I saw live when I was about seven years old.

And he's still going.

Yeah.

So, I mean, the the list goes on, but those were some big inspirations.

But it's really cool to, you know, know all these people on a personal level now.

But yeah, magic is small like that.

Yeah.

You know, it's so much smaller than, say, music or even stand-up comedy.

There's not many of you guys.

There's really not.

Yeah.

Why do you think it's so hard to get to that level, I guess?

Well, I think it's just more of a niche.

So less people are exposed to it.

Like music, you're exposed to inevitably.

Right.

You heard, you heard music maybe in the car on the way here, whether you turned on the radio or not, right?

Or streaming or whatever it is.

You know what a radio, you know, radio.

Yes.

Just making sure.

My dad used to find a station.

My dad, again,

I never dealt with.

You go into, I mean, you know what a target is.

Target?

The store.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I don't know.

I figured you just ordered her on Amazon, right?

No, but you walk in, jokes aside, you walk into like a store, you hear music.

Magic is not readily available.

You kind of have to seek it out.

It's not on TV constantly, right?

It's not all over streaming platforms.

So you kind of have to seek it out.

So I think less people are exposed to it, less people are involved in it, and if it's not easy to you right away, you probably give it up.

Or let's say you do a trick and it doesn't work.

That might be the end of your magic in your head, right?

You might be like, all right, I'm good with that.

So yeah, I think it's just a smaller niche.

Were you naturally good at it at first or did you develop it?

I don't know if I was naturally good at it, but I think I took to it pretty quickly.

As a child,

I was definitely looking back at like old footage, I go, wow, I was like really putting work in.

So the work ethic is what got you to where you're at yourself.

Yeah, I think tenacity over everything, right?

Over natural talent, over connections, over

most other things, I think is just drive and not giving up.

Yeah, that's the one thing you can control.

I always tell people.

Yeah.

Your effort.

Yeah.

And I think just not giving up maybe takes you further than all those other things.

It's great to have a combination of all of those things, but I think the most important one is to keep driving.

Were you ever close to giving up at all throughout the journey?

Never.

Not even a little bit?

I don't think so.

Wow.

Yeah.

No, I had a laser focus from the very beginning.

Well done.

Yeah.

I went to college, studied business, marketing in hopes of like using that to support the magic habit, as I've said many times.

And immediately when I finished college, I started doing it full-time as best I could.

That's smart because a lot of the most gifted people, whether it's magic or sports, aren't necessarily the most known.

So to have their marketing background is pretty smart.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's show business and business is the bigger word.

Right.

You know, so you got to make sure you focus on that side of it as well.

Yes.

You know, the importance of getting yourself out there.

Yeah, yeah.

And like, and that's, that's how the shift, that's the big shift that happened, right?

Like once, once AGT happened and coming to Vegas and all that.

Before, I was spending 90% of my time doing the business, and and I got to spend a little bit of time doing art, doing the show and creating.

And now that's flipped where, you know, I can focus the vast majority of my time on the stuff that I'm really passionate about and

have the business handled by an amazing support system that I've sort of built over the past decade.

Nice.

So it sounds like you had no plan B.

You were all in on this.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

It's cool that you knew such a young age.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's very rare.

I know.

I'm always shocked by how rare that is.

Like, most people are entering college or even leaving college if they go like wondering, okay, what do I do now?

Which I think is totally okay.

Like, I would totally agree that when you're in your 20s, you have nothing but time ahead.

I'm 37 years old.

It's not halftime yet.

Right?

Like, I think it's still the beginning for

us.

Nice.

I love that optimism.

Let's go.

Just won best magic show of the year, right, in Vegas?

Did we win that just now?

What are we listening?

We went last year?

We probably, yeah, I think we won best Headliner for the past five years in a row, something like that.

We've won Best Magic Show, Best Family Show.

I mean, you name it.

There's all these crazy Vegas awards.

I try not to take it all too seriously.

But yeah,

when you come here for 10 years, when you spend 10 years here, you're bound to win some stuff.

So I'm just thankful that the local community has gotten behind it and supported.

What do you still want to accomplish at this point in your career?

That's a good question.

Honestly,

I just like being able to share what I do for people.

So as I develop new material, you know, like musicians put out that next album, right?

As I come up with new stuff, I just want to have platforms to be able to share it on and to reach more people.

And at the end of the day, it's just about entertaining people and making people happy, right?

Absolutely.

Because everyday life, there can be, people can reach dark places.

So I want to be able to pull people out of that, even for just a moment.

I love that.

I'd love to see you and some other magicians at the sphere.

Oh, that would be cool.

You guys can make that happen.

That'd be be sick.

That would be wild.

I never thought about that.

You know, I haven't even been to the sphere.

What?

Yeah.

I do shows like six nights a week out here in Vegas.

Seven nights.

No, it's seven o'clock.

Yeah, so no, I mean, I do, like, but oftentimes on my off nights or off weeks, the last thing I'm doing is like going to the strip to see a show.

You know?

Yeah, you probably don't want to be there.

It's not that I don't want to.

It's just, yeah, sometimes it's tough to get over there.

I'm dying to get to the sphere.

I've heard nothing but great things about it, but yeah, doing a show there with like as a collaborative thing with magic would be pretty cool.

But from what I've heard, you barely could see the acts because like it's such a big space.

You know, you see you two and Bonos like the size of an ant

on the big stage.

So I just learned about this actually.

I haven't been yet either.

Oh, okay.

The Backstreet Boys just came on.

Yep.

And they're performing there next month.

So they said it's two shows.

So they said the people sitting in the front rows are watching the live show like you're used to.

And then everyone else is looking at the screens.

Yeah, I gotcha.

Gotcha.

So it's like two shows at once.

Yeah.

Yeah, that looks right.

That's great.

And

it's good.

All

live shows now seem to have like an on-screen media element.

We've been doing that for a long time where sometimes we do smaller scale magic within the show, but we have these pretty enormous screens for the size of the space we perform in that it's called iMag, you know, and it magnifies it so everyone can see it from the very last row.

Yeah.

I feel like that's needed these days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to have, even if you're not using it for that, even if you're just using it for ambience like you do here in your studio, like that's, it's, it's all part of the vibe.

It's a cool look.

I care about the vibe of the show, like the aesthetics are so important.

It's a concert, you know?

It's it's it's concert grade lighting and sound and all that stuff.

I mean, it's it's produced like an episode of America's Got Talent or American Idol or Voice or any of those things.

I mean, it's high, high-level production.

Yeah, you want everyone leaving happy, right?

Exactly.

By what seat they're in, yeah, yeah, no, I want them to be, you know, pleasantly surprised and blown away by everything.

Yeah, you know, not just the magic.

You ever deal with any hecklers out here in Vegas?

Oh, God, we deal with so much crazy stuff.

So much crazy stuff.

Usually I find that hecklers are hecklers kind of get a bad name because usually people think that they're being malicious.

Usually I think, even in the stand-up comedy, when someone's yelling out and like trying to participate in the show like that, they're usually trying to help.

Like they think that they are contributing.

And sometimes they are, the way that you can banter back with them, right?

And sometimes you have to put them in their place or what have you.

Honestly, I love that stuff.

When I'm in the middle of talking on stage and someone yells something out, I'd say 90% of the time I stop and go, what?

And have a genuine back and forth.

And like the result is usually lots of laughs.

And usually it's, you know, I do it in a polite way with a little bit of sass, depending on what their attitude is.

But they think that they're adding.

They don't realize that all the cards,

excuse the pun, are stacked against them, right?

Because the person on stage has the microphone.

They've done this thousands of times.

They know where it started, where it's going.

And they have the cadence.

As the person on stage, you have the cadence and the rhythm to control everything.

They have no microphone.

They're just like a faceless voice shouting out.

So I handle it gently because the power dynamic really exists.

Like these people paid to see you.

So this person yelling out that they think is going to maybe ruin their experience, the audience is already like so ready to turn on them.

I have to like prevent that from happening.

That's like, so I manage it pretty gently, but I have a lot of fun with it.

And I know that they are not malicious.

So I genuinely try to like just vibe back and forth with them.

I love it.

That's fun.

Yeah, there's a lot of crowd work.

I bet.

I dig it.

I dig it.

I posted a video just a couple of days ago of like a guy who was.

pretty drunk on stage with me.

So he's right there side by side on the iMag with me.

And some of the comments, people are saying, like, oh, what a jerk he was.

And like, I really don't think he was being a jerk.

I think he was being playful and fun.

And he was a little tipsy, trying to understand like my directions because I'm a fast talker.

Yeah.

Right.

So he's like trying to follow along.

He's, and yeah, I don't think it was anything malicious at all.

And the outcome was amazing.

I love that.

That's cool to see you treat it that way.

Yeah, yeah.

So I dig it.

I roll with the punches.

Yeah, there's probably a lot of drunk people in the audience in Vegas.

Yeah, sometimes, sometimes.

You never know what you're going to get.

We've had a lot of crazy things happen.

You're out there.

You're going to pick someone out.

Oh, very occasionally.

It's happened, but it's very, very rare.

Yeah, they got to be like stupid at that point.

Yeah, yeah, it's very rare.

We had a guy that literally ran on stage and just started jumping around.

He got kicked out.

But I mean, it's pretty rare.

Yeah.

He must have been blacked out or something.

You know what?

I don't even know.

I wasn't on stage at the moment that it happened.

I was backstage.

It was like a different, it was a transition moment, and I wasn't out there when it happened.

But yeah, I would imagine he was on something.

Is Vegas one of your favorite places to perform?

It is.

What I love about it is that everyone is from different places.

So, like, it's really cool going on the road and playing in whichever city.

And that's interesting because it's like everyone is from that place.

So, when you do a show in Boston, everyone's got that accent.

Everyone's kind of got this similar vibe in a way.

It's cultured.

Whereas when you play in Vegas, it's cultured in a totally different way because you have people from Abu Dhabi and people from, you know, different parts of the United States, Canada, all over the place, Australia.

So, and that's like such a cool environment to be in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's an interesting crowd because I went to a few comedy shows out here.

Cool, and that I feel like is challenging because everyone's from different places.

Okay, I can't make local jokes, right?

Right, exactly.

So, I saw Nicky Blazer, and I was like, wow, she really has to work this room.

Yeah, yeah, see, I think it makes it even harder when you have to have local jokes because then they have to be different in every city.

Oh, really?

Because when you play Vegas,

you start developing material that will work anywhere.

It kind of makes you bulletproof in a way.

Smart.

Right?

But when you go to Tennessee, it's like, oh, I got to kind of know about what I'm doing, who I'm talking about, what the people of Tennessee are feeling right now.

Yeah, makes sense.

What about other countries?

You like other countries?

Yeah.

I haven't traveled for work internationally so, so much, especially since I started here, but it's always a good time.

Yeah.

You ever get dangerous or risky with the stunts or the tricks?

Almost never.

Yeah, no.

I mean, I'm okay with like, from a moral standpoint, i like the idea of like when something appears to be dangerous but it's not like if you look at penn and teller do their bullet catch right uh no they've said many times it's a hundred percent safe like there's no chance that they're gonna get shot in the face right and i think that's cool like that to me is art when you're actually putting yourself in real danger that that from a moral standpoint i'm not sure how i feel about that okay right because now it's like i don't know i don't know that's not my area so that's where you differ from like guys like blain and stuff absolutely or evil kinievil any of that stuff where it's like actual stunts where there is a chance of you hurting yourself.

You know, that I don't know how to look at that artistically, but I'm not a stunt guy anyway.

Yeah.

You know, I, I've, I like interactive stuff.

I like visual stuff.

And I don't like stuff that's too dark.

Like for me, like I, I like stuff that's more in the tone of upbeat comedy.

I like, I like the stand-up comedy tone better than this dark, mysterious tone where you're, you know, acting like you're this

special being.

You know that magician vibe that I'm talking about?

I got a really funny.

Are you referencing Chris Angel?

Not necessarily, but I mean, he certainly would fall into that

genre.

Yeah, I got a.

There are many, you know.

My friend and I, first time in Vegas, I go to the dispensary.

Weed is legal here.

Sure.

Not where I grew up in Jersey.

So we get edibles.

I'm like, yeah, let's go to a magic show tonight.

Okay.

He says Chris Angel.

I'm like, I never heard of him.

Let's do it.

Okay.

So we eat the edible.

Oh, boy.

Oh, my God.

I walk in the room.

We're late.

So, like, I'm in the middle and just pitch black.

There's crows flying around.

Chris is on stage, like, doing his thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I left.

I couldn't handle it.

Oh, man.

I didn't even see it.

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah.

Sorry to hear that.

I thought it was just a typical magician with the bunny in the hatch type thing.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Not too many of the traditional bunny in the hat magicians exist like at this level in Vegas.

Well, there's

a lot eight years ago, but yeah.

Sure.

No, but I mean, even then,

like, I don't think so.

Yeah.

Even when I came here 10 years ago you weren't really going to survive here unless you were really doing something different so like maybe that wasn't your cup of tea but i think you got to bring something to the table that's different that's true so like the whole tuxedo bunny and hat thing i think is pretty long gone now i could see that yeah so i i you know i hope to be a small part of that shift yeah you know but yeah that wasn't my vibe at all so i i can agree with you on that there you go We all got our own preferences.

There's so many verticals of magic.

Verticals?

Like different forms of magic.

Oh, yeah.

It's totally true.

Yeah.

And people know that now, which is cool.

Back like 10, 15 years ago, I don't think people knew there were genres of magic.

But I think because of like social media and different ways magic has become popular, people start to see that there are different styles, just like there's country music, there's hip-hop and magic.

You have close-up magic, you have mentalism, you have visual stuff, you have stage magic, right?

You have all these different things.

So I like that people are starting to understand that.

You have social media magic, which is a whole different genre.

Some people have become, you know, developed massive followings just from just from that alone.

So it's cool.

And I dig all of it away.

It's cool.

Yeah.

Do the guys that expose the tricks annoy you on social media?

I'm going to get flack for this.

Not at all.

It just doesn't.

I don't think it's important.

Really?

Yeah.

I personally would never choose to do it myself.

It's not my style.

I'm not saying I even support it, but it just doesn't bother me.

I don't think that it causes the harm that people think it does.

You know?

I'll speak from a casual fan point of view.

Yeah.

For me, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't.

And I think we need to get past the idea that like learning the secret ruins the trick because it doesn't, man.

I've been studying this stuff for three decades now.

I get fooled all the time.

Really?

All the time.

So like the fact that I can study it as closely as I have and still be fooled regularly.

Do you really think it's going to ruin your experience of magic watching a 20-second TikTok on how one trick might be done if it's even accurate?

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't think so.

I've seen so many of them and I'll forget like how it's done.

Everyone forgets.

Yeah.

And like I could learn something and then I could see something in a like that same method used in a different context and still be fooled by it.

Our brains are human.

Like they all work.

My brain works the same way yours does in a lot of ways.

And it's involuntary.

Just the same way when you laugh, it's involuntary.

Our brain takes shortcuts, and magic takes advantage of those shortcuts.

It's trying to explain it succinctly here.

But like, if it fooled you then, it's going to fool you again later if you see it in a different context and don't recognize that method.

So I don't think they're particularly harmful myself.

I agree.

Yeah.

When you get fooled nowadays, do you go home and look it up or what do you do?

Usually not.

Yeah, no, I generally don't.

I generally enjoy being fooled and I just kind of take it for what it is.

I go, wow, that's great.

I'm impressed.

And then I just move on with my day.

Oh, you don't think about it?

Not particularly, no.

Wow.

No.

I'm so logical that I want to know how things are.

Interesting, yeah.

I mean, nor does it bother me if I do learn.

Like if I do, maybe a week later, I bump into somebody and say, hey, you know, did you see this?

And they explained to me how it works.

And then I, oh, that's interesting.

You know, and maybe I can take that method and apply it to something I'm working on.

Maybe I can't.

I don't know.

But it's neither here nor there for me.

Man, it's all about entertainment.

That's it.

You're just at peace with yourself and your style, it sounds like.

Try to be.

Yeah, I try to be.

But like, yeah, it's very old school to think that like learning the secret ruins the trick.

It's like, no, of course not.

I know how a lot of things work, and I love a good magic show.

Doesn't matter if I know things or not.

You know?

Any pressure to constantly think of new tricks for your shows?

Yeah, I do feel that.

Just the same way I think a musician feels the pressure pressure to like write more songs, put out the next album.

I'm sure comedians feel it too.

Magic is a weird balance for me because it's similar to music and that when people come see my show, there are certain hits they want to see me do.

Maybe they've seen it from TV or something else or what have you.

And they say, oh, I hope he does XYZ.

But they also want to see new things too.

So it's like when someone goes to see a comedian, for the most part, they're hoping for new material.

When you go see music, I feel like you're almost always hoping for the hits.

I want the hits, right?

When they go,

we go, oh, we're going to play a new song now.

Everyone gets pissed.

A lot of people, and they literally go piss.

Yeah, right.

That's their chance to go to the bathroom.

Magic is this weird balance where it's like, I have this

ability to do hits, but also people are very eager to see new stuff too.

So, you know, it's somewhere in the middle.

It's an interesting ground to stand on.

I like it.

It's very interesting.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's fascinating.

Yeah.

You get the best of both.

Yeah.

How much time goes into perfecting one?

Because there's so many tricks in your

life.

Too much time goes into it.

I'd imagine at least months for each specific it could be.

Yeah.

Sometimes I try things on the fly.

You know, I'll have ideas and I'll work them in.

I'll say, let me try this tonight.

But it's usually things I've been sitting on or working with for a while.

The pandemic was great for me.

You know, we were, I was not doing live shows for over 400 days.

So it was a lot of time to develop new stuff.

And that time is just so necessary.

But yeah, it takes time, man, because imagine, I don't know, you ever played a musical instrument?

I tried trumpet.

I sucked.

So you know it's tough.

Yeah.

Right.

Now imagine, because this is what it's kind of like in magic.

You don't just have to learn to play the trumpet.

You kind of have to like invent the trumpet first and then build it or have someone build it and design it with you, or if not do it yourself.

And then you have to learn how to play it, right?

Because magic.

often involves props.

But if you come up with an idea that you want to do something with some crazy prop that doesn't exist, you now have to build that prop,

figure out how to use it learn how to use it and now come up with a presentation that also makes it entertaining so it's like an added layer of

work that goes into it it's not just like you pick it up and do it right you know you just watch a youtube video you can with certain things right but like for the most part when you're creating bespoke magic it's uh the process is long even just for to learn a card trick man the slights and the toolbox of of things you need to learn to be able to navigate those waters.

It's a lot, but it's so much fun.

So much fun.

What was the hardest trick to master for you?

Gosh.

That took the most time.

That took the most time.

That's crazy.

There's a thing I do in the show called card manipulation, and it's like a stage act where your hands are empty and you're sort of, it's like this artistic visual display.

There's no talking.

It's only set to music.

And I'm pulling these cards out of the air.

They're appearing.

They're disappearing.

And it's a really high level in terms of skill thing.

And you don't see it often these days.

And very few people dabble in that realm.

And that's stuff I've been working on since I was seven.

And like till this day, I'm still kind of refining those skills.

It's a, it's a...

It's like playing guitar.

Like you never really are done.

Card manipulation itself is like an instrument itself.

There's so many details to it and ways.

So that's stuff I've been working on probably the longest.

And then some stuff, it's just as difficult, but you don't have as much time.

So for instance, like I did a thing in the streets with Neil Patrick Harris in New York City where I vanished from in the streets, turned into him.

So we had passerbys coming and we, you know, we filmed this for TV.

So I would just meet someone on the street and I'd say, hey, you know,

some people say I look like Neil Patrick Harris.

Do you think I look like him?

And they'd be like, not really, right?

And then I'd say, look, there's a bus coming.

And I'd point off into the distance and they'd see like a tourist bus coming down the street.

And then when they would turn back to me, I was Neil.

No way.

And I'm on the bus, a double-decker bus, and I'm on the top of it.

And we did this.

We did this for real in the streets of New York City for real people.

And, you know, there was a lot of work that went into how we did that.

I bet.

Yeah, yeah.

But we had to get it done quickly because deadlines, man.

Yeah.

So those street interviews and the street magic tricks are legendary.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We've had a lot of fun doing stuff like that.

I love those videos with the twins.

Have you seen those?

What do you mean?

A twin will say, hey, how are you doing?

And then they'll keep walking by.

Yeah, I have seen things.

Twin brother will say, hey, this was basically like that, except I don't have a twin.

Yeah.

You don't.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, those are classic, though.

Have you adopted pretty well to the social media stuff?

Slowly but surely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I go through phases.

I go through phases where I get burnt out on it.

And then I go through phases where I really enjoy the creative process of it.

Yeah, I feel like it's, there's some guys that could get away with no social media at all, and that's super impressive to me, but I feel like most people need it these days.

2025, man.

You got to be on there.

Yeah, unless you're like an A-list actor or something.

Sure.

But even said, even then, it certainly doesn't hurt.

It doesn't.

You know?

Yeah.

For whatever brand deal, this or that or what's going on.

Like, I think it's really, you know.

If you want to keep doing what you do, I think it's part of the game for any artist.

There's been magicians and comedians that have built their whole career off Instagram or TikTok absolutely sell out shows, and you know what I say to that round of applause, man.

Good for you.

That's awesome.

Yeah, right?

It's a lot harder when you were starting.

No, I mean, look, yeah, it didn't, it barely existed, you know, when I mean like I had Instagram back in 2000, whatever it was, but um

Yeah, I think it's such an important part, so I dig it.

I enjoy it.

I enjoy being able to interact with people on there, and it's cool.

Yeah, what's next for you, man?

Where can people watch the show and keep up with you and all that?

I am at the Link Hotel and Casino.

It's a Caesars property right there on the Las Vegas Strip.

And I perform at seven o'clock on a nightly basis.

We're there just about six nights a week.

Find our schedule online, get your tickets on Ticketmaster.

The reviews don't lie, man.

Come and see us.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Can't wait to see it.

Yeah.

Find me on the socials.

It's at Matt Franco.

Matt with One T, like a doormat, M-A-T.

So walk all over me if you want to.

You find me on all that stuff, whether it's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, the whole shebang.

You can find us there, and

that's where I'm at.

Thanks for coming all that.

Oh, my pleasure, man.

Thanks for having me.

Check them out, guys.

Check out the show.

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