“A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician.”
— Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.

If you ask a magician to give you one famous quote about their object of study, the vast majority of them will tell you that Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin once said “A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician.” (some might attribute it to Houdini, magicians are not all good with names and history…).

What magicians think the quote means

If you ask a magician to explain the Robert-Houdin quote and if they have thought about it (most magicians are blissfully unclear on the meaning of the quote: it defines a magician as a magician which is awfully recursive), they will focus on the word actor and tell you that Robert-Houdin (one of the most famous and influential magicians in history but, we will come back to that) was discussing the acting elements inherent to all magical performance. Magicians perform in front of the public and are thus, by definition, actors.

That is debatable (most magicians have no background in acting and putting someone on a stage does not make them an actor) and ironic because anyone that has seen a magic show knows that most magicians are terrible actors. However, a lot of magicians hide behind the quote, considering that being a magician is enough to consider themselves actors and thus, not need to learn acting. They mostly rely on showing you something impossible enough to be worthy of applause independently of their presentations.

Some think they can escape acting by being themselves, though this still requires acting since even a stand-up comedian puts on a mask when they set foot on the stage, or by keeping the presentation and their script to a minimum. Not realizing that even silent magicians, especially silent magicians, need to act. For example, Teller is a wonderfully expressive actor.

Acting is important to good magic. The best magicians (and, to be honest, the only ones I enjoy watching) are the ones that, while doing something impossible in front of you, have a personality and a mannerism that shines through. The magicians you would watch even if they were just making an omelet on stage, the magicians you want to befriend, the magicians that intrigue you. Those magicians are actual actors in that they took the time to study acting and design a character that is worth watching. Do not let their words fool you; even performers who perform as amplified versions of themselves are putting their masks on as soon as they are in public.

What the quote actually means

I am not the first to point it out but the full quote (published in 1868 in Secrets of Conjuring and Magic) reads as follows:

A conjurer is not a juggler; he is an actor playing the part of a magician; an artist whose fingers have more need to move with deftness than with speed.

It is translated from nineteen’s century French, so some meaning has eroded with time, but a modern translation would be something like this:

A magician does not do demonstrations of skills, he plays the part of a wizard. An artist whose finger are agile rather than fast.

The main point is that magicians should not be jugglers (people who demonstrate skills rather than mystery, that are barely fast with their hands) but rather wizards (people doing impossible things, things you cannot explain despite having been told that it boils down to trickery). Robert-Houdin is not talking about acting, he is telling us that mystery is an essential component of magic and that showing-off skills is fine but destroys the mystery and turns what you do into juggling (which is a fine art in and by itself, it is just not magic).

That is an interesting point because a lot of performers still do not consider the distinction between magic and juggling and will demonstrate a mix of both without putting thoughts into it. Making that distinction is one step in picking your character. Are you a wizard (things happen by magic around you, effortlessly maybe? Or after a lot of effort? By your will? Or by accident?) or a skilled sleight-of-hand artist (this can, arguably, also be a very strong premise, but you have to first realize that this is the character you are going for to be able to explore it consciously)?

Of mice and meaning

One argument could be made that the misreading of the original quote caught on because the question of acting in magic is an important one (and definitely not because it lets magicians tell people that magic is definitely an art since it includes some acting).

Another could be made that, had more people read the full quote and taken the time to understand it, we might have fewer magicians saying that they are perfectly fine actors and more magicians thinking about questions such as “What is my character’s ability, do the things I do happen by magic or by skill?” and building an actual character (notice that we are back to acting but now from a practical perspective).

I believe both readings are interesting and worth thinking about. However, first and foremost, you have to think about the things you are doing. None of the thoughts above are particularly original and most people, if asked the proper questions, should be able to stumble on similar points and, likely, go further into more personal directions. But, to their audience’s loss, most magicians don’t think about those questions. They repeat the quote and sometimes wonder why Houdini defined a magician as a magician, sounds like a terrible way to define something…

Finally, coming back to Robert-Houdin’s influence and people not getting the point. When Robert-Houdin started performing, most magicians would dress as wizards (with a pointy hat, cape, and associated paraphernalia) but, he realized that dressing weirdly was just a silly thing that put an additional wall between audience and performer, hindering the suspension of disbelief. He thus decided to break with conventions and dress as an everyday person of his time, with a jacket and top hat. One hundred and fifty years later, magicians still wear a top hat.