The Big Picture

The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman
is based on executing original, hilarious pranks aimed at deserving individuals.
Placing humanity at the center, the series aims to spark meaningful conversations and clear the air.
Justin Willman’s favorite prank involves an elaborate time travel concept, pushing limits with meticulous planning.

If you looked at the Netflix Top 10 in North America this week, you’d likely see one of the streamer’s most original and laugh-out-loud reality TV shows conjuring up a fast uptick in viewership. The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman might look like a version of Punk’d made for Gen Z, but it’s quite the opposite. Hosted by famed magician and comedian Justin Willman, the Magic for Humans star uses his extraordinary skills to pull off ambitious and hilarious pranks never seen before. With his team of twisted professionals, Willman executes brain-bending experiments to help everyday folks blow the minds of those they love and settle old scores. In an exclusive interview with Collider about his six-episode reality series that took more than two years to produce, Willman admits there are “many moving parts” to a show like this one. “I think with any prank, you’ve gotta slow roll it a little bit,” he said. “You can’t go too absurd right away.”

The absurd is what audiences have seen across the series spanning 30 minutes each. From AI robots coming to life to the rapture and time travel, Willman admits it’s all about keeping everyone involved invested and none the wiser, like a shopper accused of shoplifting and a bag full of items even Mary Poppins would envy. “If you start slow and they kind of start to mentally unravel a little bit, you can get more absurd and more absurd and somehow by the end, be doing things that you could have never gotten away with one or two minutes in,” he said of his process and admitting it’s all about keeping your cards, for lack of a better word, close to the vest. “But after they’re in it longer, their grasp on reality can shift.”

While some of the situations are also incredibly funny — like a ride-share driver who is heavily distracted — Willman manages to keep his cool thanks to his stage presence over the years. “In these pranks, a chuckle or any break, especially like in the robot prank, would ruin everything. It was like a mind over matter just really getting in there.” In addition to sharing how the show is really about “being human” with one another and getting to the grassroots of experiences that left some feeling alone or scared in our exclusive Q&A, Willman says it’s all about clearing the air with someone who means a lot to you.

“You know, like so many people live to a ripe old age or die without having conversations about the things that matter to them: ‘This is something that bothers me; this is something I wish you knew was important to me.’ All these little things, we’re kinda carrying that stuff around every day. So strangely, I saw these surreal immersive prank experiences that give people a chance to say the thing they’ve always been meaning to say. For someone to go through the trouble to reach out to a magician and conspire with him and his team, to do this thing is like a gesture of immense love.”

The Magic Prank Show with Justin Willman Follows Willman as he uses his skills to pull off hilarious pranks like never seen before.Release Date April 1, 2024 Cast Kyle Marlett , Justin Willman Seasons 1

‘The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman’ Is Climbing the Netflix Charts
Image via Netflix

COLLIDER: The show is in the Netflix Top 10 following its April 1 debut! That must be so humbling. How are you feeling after two years of hard work to have the network, understand it, and love it just as much as we do?

WILLMAN: It is humbling and rewarding. It feels really good. It’s also kind of surreal because, you know you’re working on this thing in a vacuum. It kind of feels like a mom-and-pop operation for so long because it’s just like really just a group of you and your friends and you kind of these collaborators, you’re in a bubble making this thing, and just for it to finally, finally see eyeballs is so joyous.

COLLIDER: I have to ask, growing up, were you ever pranked by someone?

WILLMAN: I know you’re thinking like, what was the inciting incident? What was your Batman as a magician? I don’t know. I have been doing magic as long as I can remember — since I was 12. And you’re kind of just on high alert for people being deceptive, you know, high-alert for people lying because you’re dedicating all your time to trying not to be detected while you’re lying. So, I was good at catching people when they were trying to pull something or people acting weird when walking near my backpack. I’m like, ‘What did you guys do?’ I was never harshly pranked. I was also never a prankster. For me, magic was always kind of my form of prank. It’s a trick. It’s got a surprise ending there too, you know, mystify, give you joy, hopefully catch you off guard.

‘The Magic Prank Show’ Is a Series Rooted in Love

COLLIDER: You’ve had a good relationship with Netflix and I’m wondering like, how did ‘The Magic Prank Show’ come about? We had three seasons of ‘Magic for Humans,’ which I feel was doing so well and a lot of fans wanted more and then we got this, which was another variation of that. So how did this come about?

WILLMAN: I love making ‘Magic for Humans’ and I hope I get to make more. I hope this breathes a little new life back into it. The third season of Magic For Humans, you know, came out during COVID there, and so doing another season right then wasn’t an option. So, I naturally needed to put those creative juices into something. I had heard rumbling about Netflix looking for a prank show, and at first, I wasn’t like, ‘Let’s go for it!’ because I kinda have a love-hate relationship with the prank genre, if you will. You know, just the word prank kind of can be a polarizing word to a lot of people if they decide they don’t like it just by that being part of the title. And I was trying to think like, what don’t I like about prank shows? And I think it was just the occasional cringes you get when somebody just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, they’re the target of this thing. I used what I didn’t like about prank shows to think, ‘Well, what if we did a show only for people who deserve it?’ Like, we learn about what they did, hopefully in a fun light way, and help clear the air for me. It’s about clearing the air. It’s not about cold revenge. We all have these conversations that we keep putting off or something that we want to say; ‘I want to let you know that there’s that thing that still bugs me.’

Related ‘Kings From Queens: The RUN DMC Story’ Review: An Emotionally Unfiltered Hip-Hop Reunion The Peacock docuseries is at its best when it allows the artists to be vulnerable.

These conversations are so easy to procrastinate on. You know, they often just never happen. I felt like this could be a fun way to hopefully just be an instigator for that chat [and] saying the thing you’ve been meaning to say or at least, you know, doing an extreme magic prank to get someone’s attention enough to spark that conversation. Hopefully, it doesn’t inspire people to get revenge. But then, of course, that could be a fun season too. Who knows? But that was kind of the impetus for it. I was like, what is it that rubs me about prank shows, and how can I fix that? And that’s kind of where the badge of prank show was born. It’s really rooted in love.

COLLIDER: When I was sitting and watching, that one story about the sibling who outed his younger brother when he shouldn’t have — that was not his story to tell, and then you have Ezekiel, whose story I loved so much. I did tear up because he felt very lonely when that prank happened and for his sister to put him in that situation. You brought so much humanity to those moments to let the other person express themselves in this sort of way, where you can only do this with family or friends who are so close to you.

WILLMAN: Ezekiel’s story was kind of part of the origin story for the show a little bit because, you know, the ‘Invisible Man’ that we did on Magic for Humans. The human sparked this kind of invisible challenge thing, which most people, you know on the show — we did it for a couple of grown adults, convincing them they’re invisible and having them take the bait is fun and satisfying to watch. But seeing people then do it to kids and their younger siblings, I kind of had this lingering guilt that I was feeling for a long time, so helping, right the wrong that I started was definitely a part of the original idea.

Justin Willman’s Favorite Prank Is Also the Series’ Best

COLLIDER: There are so many great pranks on this show, but when you are working on it day in and day out, did you have a favorite prank that you want audiences to love and connect with as much as you did?

WILLMAN: I now have a reputation at Netflix on production for stretching a lot in the budget beyond its constraints. I try to kind of push each prank’s limit and scale as much as I can, which often, you know, leads to friction in the end. Hopefully, it’s all well worth it. So, we didn’t have any room for error, which was kind of the part of the stress that helped I think, make it all work and help the meticulousness of ease. If one or two of these pranks fell through, like we’re gonna be short. So everything kinda made it my favorite prank. I was so excited about it that I think it took a while for everyone else to see the vision was the opposite. This idea of a sleep study going wrong and waking up in the future. The closest I thought I could get someone into believing, basically, the concept of time travel. I just love time travel so much; I love time travel movies. It’s such a far-fetched concept to make grown adults believe. So it was kind of like, my Trojan horse for a time travel episode and it’s one of my faves. Hopefully, people hang in there until the end. It’s worth the binge.

COLLIDER: When it comes to the pranks on the show, do you draw a line in the sand about how extreme or dangerous the requests might be?

WILLMAN: It’s interesting. Some people may have had a story that was a little too heavy for me to tackle in a comedy magic prank show world. Like I mentioned these conversations that we’re all holding on to — the air that needs to be cleared — like, there were certain issues that I felt, I don’t wanna make light of this so much that people think it’s not as serious as it is, whatever that thing might be. But I would say, I was always weary about how far I could take it. I don’t want to make somebody think that they’ve witnessed a murder, you know? I try to make things feel a little, you know, like someone’s head into ice. I didn’t want to make it look like Jack Nicholson, The Shining frozen head. I want to make it somewhat comical when it doesn’t inspire pure terror right off the bat. More like, ‘What the hell’s happening?’ In terms of my team — [Stuart Macleod, Jake Laufer, Daniel Kinno, Stuart Miller] — I’ve kind of got like two angels and two devils on my shoulders because I’m kind of like in the middle and so, they help steer me one way or the other. Hopefully, the experience, the real experience, the gesture of love is appropriate.

Related All the Movies and Shows Coming to Netflix in April 2024 Titles from Sydney Sweeney, Andrew Scott, and Zack Snyder will be making their way to Netflix this April.

COLLIDER: You and your team have such a great dynamic when it comes to execution and really understanding the details of a prank. But did guys have any challenges or even conversations about what you shouldn’t or should, you know, feature on camera? Because there is quite a bit that is shared, but also, some elements that are explicitly hidden.

WILLMAN: That’s a real, it’s a real tricky line. It’s one of those things that is very much like kind of a case-by-case basis. As a magician, when you see it — there are some magicians who are hardliners who think that any exposure, any exposure is bad, even something as simple as tossing a sheet up as you drop to the floor — and then there are magicians who love to expose it all. I fall closer, like if any exposure is as bad as zero and anything goes is 100 percent, I’m kind of around 20 percent. I think letting people into the psychology, the science, and the techniques involved on a case-by-case basis helps them appreciate the final product. That’s why we kind of shot fly on the wall of everything and then tried to make that decision later of how much to show. There are already some magicians who think we showed too much [and] there are some people who are like, ‘How did you vanish in the end?’ They wanted to know more. So, hopefully, there’s a little something for everybody because I know there are the true magic lovers who want to suspend their disbelief — don’t wanna know anything, and hopefully, there are still plenty of surprises, and they leave feeling like, ‘Oh good, he, he didn’t spoil it for me. I have no clue how that will happen.’ But little bread crumbs, I think of insight along the way, hopefully enrich the final product.

The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman is now streaming on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix

This interview was edited for length and clarity.