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Quick Answer: One of the producers of Now You See Me 2 is David Copperfield, the internationally-renowned illusionist with ample experience in live and television magic. Hypnotist Keith Barry was also consulted, as were sleight of hand experts Andrei Jikh and Blake Vogt. Each taught the actors real magic skills and techniques so the magic on-screen could be as authentically performed as possible, without the help of special effects or CGI.

They say seeing is believing. Of course, when we watch magic, we know we’re being fooled. But a good magician performs their illusions to such perfection that we can’t see the seams that stitch the trick together. What they do looks real because we see it happen. We see the “what” and not the “how” and enjoy the wonder of witnessing the impossible.

In movies, the impossible happens with constancy. Anything can and does happen through the magic of cinema, editing, camera manipulation, special effects and computer-generated imagery. We’re not even slightly as emotionally stunned by witnessing the impossible on-screen as we are in-person. For that reason, authentically engaging audiences with magic in a movie is a challenge. The novelty of wondering how the illusion was constructed is lost when every detail of what we’re seeing is known to be fake.

For Now You See Me 2 (2016), the sequel to the magic/crime/caper/comedy about a group of magicians called The Four Horsemen who use their skills to pull off feats of real-world criminality, the production team called upon working magicians to provide counsel and teach the actors how to honestly perform illusions that would mesmerize on-camera. They attempted to establish the same majesty one would feel from the tricks if one were seeing them live, performed authentically by actors, with little or no help from the film’s special effects department.

Jesse Eisenberg in Now You See Me 2

“It can be hard to shoot magic for a film,” said Now You See Me 2 director Jon M. Chu, a man hired to helm the sequel thanks to his history of working with movement in the form of choreographers and dancers. “With visual effects, you can make a dinosaur come to life, an alien land on earth, anything. But we decided to do as much practical magic as we could and teach the actors how to actually do it. It’s important that the audience doesn’t think we’re cheating — and we’re not. We are actually doing the magic on screen as you watch, with no cuts. And then what’s fun is that later in the movie, we will show you how it was done.” The actors attended magic camp, worked on their dexterity, and trained in the same manner as pro magicians. According to the film’s production notes, Mark Ruffalo even learned how to breathe fire.

World-class magicians, including hypnotist and magician Keith Barry and world-famous illusionist David Copperfield (who serves as a co-producer on the film) were involved with the process as far back as during script writing. Barry was on set daily and Copperfield, known not only for live performance shows but also big television magic special events, helped design many of the set pieces and lent his invaluable experience with perception, depth of field and how things appear on camera.

“It would be much easier to use visual effects, but it’s important for the movie-going audience to know that the things that we’ve done are real,” says Barry. “That’s the essence of a good magic movie. If we put in a lot of CGI, people would realize that we can do anything that way, even things that can’t be done in real life. We made a decision to use the least amount of CGI possible, which was fun for me, because I live for performing live. I hope that will resonate with the audience.”

Now You See Me 2

Magicians Andrei Jikh and Blake Vogt also helped the crew fine-tune the props and technical aspects of the film. Both are close-up card experts, a type of magic that relies heavily on deceiving people’s eyes and perception right in front of them. They were paramount in teaching the actors to manipulate cards and objects with speed and accuracy. “We trained the cast in how to think like a cardist,” Jikh said. “How to secretly conceal cards, how to throw them like a ninja, and flick the cards from hand to hand. All of these things required focus, practice and insane dexterity. We had a lot of fun and the cast did an amazing job learning each and every technique.”

“Daniel Radcliffe has one scene where he needs to do something with a playing card,” adds Jikh. “He spent so much time perfecting that one move that he can now do it without looking at his hands. Dave Franco can flick a card from here to the other side of the room and hit something. He is absolutely brilliant at catching and throwing cards, as well as all kinds of sleight of hand stuff. Lizzy can really catch a card in her jacket or her hand or even her hair.” Jikh also said Woody Harrelson became a very talented mentalist, adding, “If he decided to give up acting and become a full-time hypnotist we should all be afraid, very afraid.”

More than anything, the filmmakers and magicians involved attempted to recreate the sense of childhood wonder we have towards magic that dwindles through adulthood. As we learn about illusions, performance and the construction of things behind-the-scenes, a bit of that whimsy and disbelief gets killed. Now You See Me 2 hopes to bring back that sense of awe, if only for a few hours, and sought the assistance of some of the world’s best practitioners of magic to do it.