It’s all part of their “don’t ask, don’t teller” policy. The allure of mystery with a slight-of-mouth for affect.
And here’s a speech by Teller about consciousness and magic and the way magicians manipulate people’s tendency to see patterns of behavior:
Unless they’ve stopped recently, they still play the Rio in Vegas. Its a good show.
I haven’t seen them tour for years.
In their brilliant current act at the Rio in Vegas, Penn does the commentary, juggling, plays the double bass and of course magic.
Teller does magic (some of it solo plus I understand he thought up most of the act) and … speaks! :eek:
Teller speaks in one trick, but you don’t realise it’s Teller until the end.
P.S. Teller has an amazing house in the Vegas suburbs.
I saw Teller speak on stage, as Teller. This would have been about 15 years ago. While Teller was walking about the stage setting up the next trick, Penn was talking to the audience. Towards the end of his spiel, Penn says something like:
“Now, of course Teller would never speak on stage, but in real life he talks just as you or I would. Isn’t that right, Teller?”
“Right.”
I also got to go onstage for Mofo the Psychic Gorilla (it was my job to recognize Teller, sitting next to me in costume, and to accidentally walk over to him when “Mofo” summons me; I’d seen the trick before, so I played the part). Another time I went onstage to throw darts at bible verses.
They even took their shtick to Run D.M.C.'s “Tricky” Video.
Watch for Teller “not” rapping at the end. I thought my audio had gone out…DOH!
We saw them years ago when they were on tour. What a great show. As noted, Teller talks plenty when he’s not in character as “Teller” – we chatted in the lobby with him, and he did both the Houdini and MOFO bits in the show we saw. Indeed, in the MOFO bit they even played this part up – a kid was brought on stage to write a number on a piece of paper so MOFO could guess it with his amazing psychic powers. So while the kid is writing it, Teller creeps up behind him, peers over the kid’s shoulder, and then goes back to the wings so he could say the number in character as MOFO when Penn asked for it.
–Cliffy
He does indeed speak as many others noted. I’m a big fan and I love their show Bullshit.
Teller is the pen and Penn is the teller.
Simple.
I’m breaking a pledge to never post here again, but, in this case I must.
I’ve spoken to both Penn and Teller. They both spoke back.
Teller’s silence on stage and TV is part of the act.
They both are extremely nice guys who go out of their way to be polite and engaging to the people who have made them rich and famous.
I, too, was onstage as an audience volunteer with P&T in the “Mofo the Psychic Gorilla” act awhile back. They completely fooled me. Great fun.
He has a beautiful voice … and you can tell he has a great joy for magic, and he really loved being suckered by that other magician! I think I would definitely add him to one of those mythical ‘if you could invite any 10 people in the world/history to dinner’ discussions.
I agree that he is a good magician and he does have a pleasant voice. I realize that it is their act but it just seems wierd, at least to me, on a tv show for skeptics, to have one silent guy doing nothing and another guy yapping a mile a minute.
There was a short film a while back about Teller being the last man alive in Las Vegas after a zombie outbreak, with Teller narrating.
They are two of the nicest performers I’ve ever met. What’s funny is that I saw their show as The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society about 30 years ago, and I still remember their tricks. I wonder whatever happened to the third guy they started with-Weir Chrisemer? Also don’t forget that Penn also does some pretty impressive fire eating.