Johnathon Schaech's starring role in the TNT movie "Houdini" isn't quite as amazing as the magician's life, but one thing about it is all but astounding.
Schaech did all of his own stunts.And, given that those stunts required that he re-create some of Harry Houdini's most treacherous tricks -- from being sealed inside a water-filled milk can to hanging upside-down from a crane to hanging upside-down and submerged in his Chinese Water-Torture Chamber -- Schaech's fortitude is nothing short of amazing.
"I think there are very few actors who would take on this role and push themselves to the extremes that Johnathon did," said director/writer/executive producer Pen Densham. "He went, literally, to the boot camp for magic. He has bruises on every part of his anatomy to prove it. This man not only learned sleight-of-hand . . . he also learned the escape parts, which are more courageous, and an incredible, center focus of commitment.
"And Johnathon put himself in danger enough to make this movie. And I was in awe because we're not just asking him to do something that is dangerous, but we're also asking him to do it in the manner of the man that was Erich Weiss -- Houdini. And that was doubly difficult."
Difficult even for the in-shape, twentysomething actor who's best known for his role in Tom Hanks' feature film "That Thing You Do."
"My knees will never be the same," Schaech said. "You could see it's a physical challenge."
"We had an ambulance sitting outside many times when we were shooting this movie," Densham added.
During a recent appearance before television critics, Schaech re-created one of those stunts, leaving himself and the writers both somewhat breathless.
"I was taught . . . to do all the escapes and all the different sleight-of-hand maneuvers that I would need to do," Schaech said. "It's not hard to learn, it's hard to do."
And, somewhat surprisingly, the heights and the depths and the confinement weren't the hardest parts of playing the world's most famous magician.
"Well, since all the stunts were very physical, I felt that I could do the physicalities of everything," Schaech said. "But it was the sleight-of-hand. It was the little intricacies that it takes to actually manipulate another's eyes and senses, to be able to perform certain tricks -- making cards appear out of nowhere and making them disappear and stuff like that.
"But it was fun and it was a great thrill to be able to do them in front of the camera when I needed."
If Schaech was rather non-chalant about the physical dangers of the role, his co-star, Stacy Edwards -- who played Houdini's wife, Bess -- was not.
"I understand why Bess turned to drink," Edwards said. "I wanted to have a drink watching him do these things. It was scary.
"He was in the water chamber, upside-down. He relied on our amazing stunt people to pull him out if needed. But, I mean, he did it all. He was in the milk can filled with water. He hung 50 stories high, hanging upside down, at Universal, and I was panicked."
(Well, it was really more like 10 stories high, but the point is the same.)
"It was incredible," Edwards said. "It was a rush, and he was having the time of his life, and we were sweating and (wetting) our pants."
In the hands of Densham -- the writer/director of "Moll Flanders" -- "Houdini" is about far more than just magical stunts. It's a biography, a love story and a mystery all wrapped into one.
Born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, the man who renamed himself Harry Houdini was complicated and enigmatic.
"Houdini's probably one of the most extraordinary characters of the last hundred years," Densham said. "I mean, you're looking at the Evel Kneivel, Barnum (and) Mick Jagger of his time, combining all three."
The telefilm follows his troubled early life, the death of his father, his devotion to his mother (Grace Zabriskie), the magic partnership he formed with his brother, Theo (Mark Ruffalo), and his passionate, often turbulent relationship with Bess.
"For me, 'Houdini' was also equally a story about Bess, who stayed with him right to the end and then beyond," Densham said. "And did, literally, go to those seances and did try earnestly to communicate with him."
Ah, those famous seances. Every Halloween for a decade after Houdini's death, Bess tried to contact her late husband through various mediums. "Houdini" is framed by the last of these, a 1936 seance hosted by a radio personality (Paul Sorvino) and attempted by a would-be spiritualist (Rhea Perlman). The narrative is told through a series of flashbacks.
The story is interesting in and of itself -- but there's the added facet of all those magic illusions.
"Houdini was an artist who created ways of making people believe that he was close to death," Densham said. "And he used every form of subterfuge he could to create that sympathy in the audience, so that they (felt) they were in that tank or in that chamber or they were going to die with him if he didn't (escape). And if something went wrong, he would die."
Densham's script and direction do a fine job of re-creating the tension that surrounded Houdini's act.
"We tried to give you the experience that an unsophisticated audience in 1988 would have gotten watching the same thing," Densham said. "We tried to capture, for our modern audience, that excitement. That thrill.
"And, at the same time, we also tried to capture a human being. I think that's really the key to it -- to not get lost in the stunts but to get deeply into what-kind-of-human-was-he?"
And, for a man whose legend became so tied to spiritualism, Houdini himself didn't believe in it.
"He was a massive skeptic," Densham said. "He was an angry, tormented man because he couldn't find the way to believe in that."
And even the director doesn't pretend to completely understand who Houdini was.
"The thing about Houdini's whole life was that he embraced subterfuge and he embraced creating legends about himself. So no one really knows what the truth is," Densham said. "'He invented this persona that has lived beyond his death, which is quite remarkable. Here's a man who died in 1926, who David Copperfield is still trying to beat."
As for Schaech, he has his own ideas about what "Houdini" is all about.
"Every time I was confined, to be free again, I think, was what he was really all about. Freedom," Schaech said with a sigh. "I still haven't recovered."