Talking with magician-comedian Michael Carbonaro
Actor and magician Michael Carbonaro with Kidsday reporters Sonia Koncelik, top left, Fiona Martin, Ella Schmidt and Edmar Gonzalez-Nateras, all 11, and from Sag Harbor, at The Paramount in Huntington Credit: Newsday/Pat Mullooly
We were lucky to interview the one and only Michael Carbonaro. He is an actor, magician and one of the funniest people that we (now) know. He grew up on Long Island in Oakdale, not far from us in Sag Harbor. He went to Connetquot High School and NYU for college.
Our interview experience was super cool. Our teacher picked names from a basket so it was totally random who got to interview Michael at The Paramount in Huntington before his recent show. To prepare, we watched a bunch of his YouTube videos and episodes of his show, “The Carbonaro Effect.” Have you ever watched it on Tru TV? It is so funny. He sets up hidden cameras and pranks people with funny magic tricks and illusions. He makes cars disappear, oranges that never stop producing juice, statues that move. He makes people think they are going crazy.
On our way to meet him we practiced our questions over and over. We were pretty nervous and so excited at the same time. It was funny because we asked Michael if he ever felt nervous and he said all of the time! He said when he is about to go on stage he gets nervous and excited almost like when you are about to go on a roller coaster. And that’s how we felt about meeting him.
He said his favorite thing to do growing up was to ride bikes around his town with his brother. We asked him if he ever got in trouble for playing tricks on his friends when he was a kid. Michael didn’t say he did, but he did say he remembers always trying to entertain his class. That’s why he went to college for drama. He also went to Tannen’s Magic Camp that was right in his town. He is friends with many of the magicians from his camp as a kid, and many of those same guys help him create his magic tricks.
Carbonaro loves performing for all ages and he feels really good when people tell him that the whole family watches his show together. He does prefer live shows over the TV show though. Sometimes hecklers will yell at him from the audience, but he can usually handle it and turn it into part of the show for a second. He said once or maybe twice hecklers got out of control and they called security.
We also asked him if he felt like he had super powers because he could do magic, and he said he would love to have super powers, but he knows how the tricks work so it wasn’t like having super powers. Superhero movies are not his favorite. He likes thrillers.
He said that people are always thinking he is tricking them. Sometimes when he just a regular person he goes to the doctor and the whole office gets nervous because they think he is going to trick them. Once he had to call roadside assistance when he broke down and the guy in the pickup truck thought that doves were going to fly out of his flat tire. He says his friends are always trying to prank each other. It’s funny, like they have to one up each other.
We had a blast interviewing Michael. He was so funny and super nice. We felt really lucky and now it is so cool to watch his shows and know we met him. He says he comes to Sag Harbor sometimes, so we have to keep a look out and we also want to catch one his live shows when it comes back to Long Island.
