Boris Wild: The Kiss Act, Penn & Teller, and Emotion as the Magician's Compass

A card trick, a silent room and, at the end, spectators with misty eyes: this is what the Kiss Act did to make Boris Wild one of the most renowned French close-up magicians in the world.

Boris Wild is a Parisian magician, Grand Prix winner of the FFAP French Championships, Monte Carlo Magic Stars winner, and FISM World Championships award winner, notably for his Kiss Act. He has performed five times at the Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde and fooled Penn & Teller on the show Fool Us. His method boils down to one idea: to go beyond astonishment, starting from an emotion and a story rather than an effect.

This article traces his journey and draws on the interview he gave to the podcast "Derrière l'oreille" to describe his creative principles, his way of working with a marked deck, and the preparation of his appearance on Fool Us.

Boris Wild in brief: a journey between close-up, stage and television

Author, lecturer and creator, Boris Wild has been pursuing an international career for over thirty years. He says he started as a child, in northern France, with a mainstream magic book by Patrick Page, whom he later had the chance to meet. His track record is solid: FFAP Grand Prix, Monte Carlo Magic Stars, FISM World Championships award, guest of honor at the FFFF congress, the most prestigious close-up gathering in the world, and president of the close-up jury at the FISM in Beijing.

On television, he appeared five times at the Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde and on Fool Us, in the United States. He was also on the cover of several specialized magazines (Genii, The Linking Ring, Magicseen, Vanish). Among his best-known routines are the Kiss Act, the Butterfly Act, a ring routine, and a mentalism routine, Pure Telepathy. His name is also associated with a marked deck, whose use he has explored far beyond the simple "take a card".

Emotion first: why astonishment is not enough

For Boris Wild, a magic trick is linked to one word: emotion. A trick must astonish, that is its very definition, but it must go further: transform what people see into a sensation, a thrill, touch "the heart". To achieve this, he observes what touches him himself in life, in cinema, in performance, and seeks why certain scenes remain engraved in many people. If they stick, it is because they have provoked something powerful.

He also insists on the palette of emotions. Humor is one, nostalgia, fear too, and emotion is not reduced to a little tear. It is a remark he places at the heart of his journey: at the time of his beginnings, he saw close-up card magic revolve almost exclusively around comedy, with tricks chained together like sketches. He said to himself that, since everyone made people laugh, he would make them cry, with a deck of cards.

Kiss Act and Butterfly Act: start from a scene, not an effect

His method stands out for an inverted working order: he starts from the story, then looks for how magic can serve it, and not the other way around. A cinema scene marks him, he wonders if there is something to tell on stage, then he chooses the effect that will carry the narrative. He cites as an example the end of Lost in Translation, whose strength lies in the fact that we never know what is said, and the opening of Up, which summarizes a couple's life in a few minutes.

• The Kiss Act is a story of first love, a memory that almost everyone can recognize. He says that spectators come out moved to tears from a routine done with a deck of cards.
• The Butterfly Act evokes a lost love, without ever specifying whether it is a separation or a bereavement: everyone puts their own story into it.
• Music plays a major role. He recognizes its narrative construction in itself (beginning, middle, end, crescendo) and cites the universe of Tim Burton and Danny Elfman as a source of inspiration.

He finally specifies that you have to put yourself into a routine: spectators perceive the magician's inner monologue, and know instinctively whether he is present or on autopilot. On these questions of storytelling, our article on how to tell a story in your show gives other leads.

What marked him: Tina Lenert and close-up that becomes theater

He locates the turning point at the 1988 FISM, where he discovers Tina Lenert's routine: a theatrical, emotional, aesthetic moment, where magic was not spectacular but perfectly staged. He wondered why we didn't tell a story this way in close-up. Today, he sees in artists like Yann Frisch with Baltass, Shin Lim or Eric Chien a close-up that has pushed music, choreography and emotion very far. Our portrait of Yann Frisch revisits this routine.

The alien theory: aim for the ideal effect before the method

Boris Wild has a creation tool that he presents in lectures. Every time he creates, he imagines himself being an alien endowed with magic powers, forced to hide on Earth because these powers are normal for him. How would he produce the effect, or what would it look like, so that no one understands? He tries to get as close as possible: the ideal effect, without a trace of method.

This idea has concrete consequences:

• Nothing in a routine should be dictated by the method: only the presentation, the effect and the emotion should be.
• It is better not to justify everything. Showing for too long that a box is empty gives the opposite impression, while a situation established by the spectator himself is much harder for him to contradict.
• If the method is good but the presentation is weak, or vice versa, it must be reworked: when you have neither, it does not work.
• An excellent idea in someone else's hands does not necessarily work in yours: he prefers to find his own angle rather than take that of a colleague.

This grid also serves him when judging FISM competitions. He looks for a magician in front of him, not someone who chains tricks together. "Entertainment" magic, made of spectacular effects without purpose, does not speak to him: it tells nothing.

The marked deck, or how to get out of a beginner deck image

For many, a marked deck is a beginner's tool, a way to avoid controls. Boris Wild defends the opposite: used with a head start or a delay, associated with key cards and technique, it allows effects of a strength that technique alone does not reach. He has used it for over twenty years in front of laypeople as well as magicians. His advice: learn the techniques first, then one day do everything you do with a marked deck, and see that certain techniques become useless, not out of laziness but because you are aiming for the ideal effect.

He applies the same reasoning to classics. On the card at any number, a very raw effect, he sought a more personal angle, for example that of the birthday: the number is no longer a simple number, it becomes a date, a memory, a person. It is a transposable principle: link a well-known effect to something intimate.

Fool Us: a routine created to measure, with Penn's voice

Boris Wild made the choice not to go on Fool Us with a routine already polished. He says he dedicated a year to it between the decision and the broadcast, with a fourth or fifth version of his card at any number, designed for the show and for Penn & Teller themselves. His advice to those who would one day join a TV set is to work on a routine that fits perfectly into the show.

According to his account, Penn Jillette's voice was part of the method, but Penn could not record it in advance since the two magicians know nothing about routines. A co-creator of the voice assistant Siri, himself a magician, would have reconstructed this voice from an audiobook, before destroying the program once the recording was completed, out of caution. The reaction of Penn & Teller, stunned, did the rest, and the magician David Berglas wrote him a note to salute the trick. Boris Wild never commercialized this routine: he wanted to create something that remains, rather than a product.

What he thinks about magic on social media and today's audience

Without condemning it, Boris Wild notes that the rise of social media has made magic a communication and self-promotion tool, with flash effects that sometimes rely on gimmicks thrown away after three seconds. He cites Xavier Mortimer as an example of a creator who understood how to make it inventive content, while emphasizing that it is not enough on stage. The audience, accustomed to screens, high definition and special effects, expects deeper artistic proposals. A routine that worked twenty-five years ago would not work the same way today, which forces the adaptation of classics, not their abandonment.

What magicians can take from it for their own work

• Start from an emotion or a scene, then choose the effect, rather than the reverse.
• Ask yourself how you would do the effect if you had nothing to hide: that is the alien theory.
• Do not justify everything: let the spectator establish their own certainties.
• Link a classic effect to something personal for the spectator.
• Create to measure for a specific context, rather than adapting an existing routine. Our article on the artist-magician and the construction of a style extends this question.

Frequently asked questions about Boris Wild

Who is Boris Wild?

Boris Wild is a French close-up and stage magician, based in Paris. He won the Grand Prix of the FFAP French Championships, a prize at the Monte Carlo Magic Stars, and an award at the FISM World Championships.

What is the Kiss Act?

It is the card routine that made Boris Wild known. It tells the story of a first love and earned him an award at the FISM. He also played it at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Did Boris Wild really fool Penn & Teller?

Yes. He appeared on the seventh season of Penn & Teller: Fool Us and won the trophy of the magicians who fooled them.

What is the alien theory?

It is a creation tool that he presents in lectures: imagine that you are a being endowed with real powers that you must hide, and seek the effect and the presentation that would resemble him, without the method dictating anything.

Emotion as a specification

What Boris Wild teaches is less a technique than a hierarchy: emotion sets the framework, presentation follows, the method is put at the service of the two. It is a useful lesson for any magician looking to get out of the chaining of tricks to build a routine that people will remember.