‘Deception’: On The Set Of ABC’s Genre-Blending Magic Procedural

Jack Cutmore-Scott keeps his fingers on his temples, staring straight ahead with a menacing look as the camera pans smoothly back and forth on his face. About 100 feet away, a small group of journalists, including myself, are hovered around a monitor watching him perform a handful of takes from the upcoming 12th episode of ABC’s new drama Deception, the first of which premieres this Sunday at 10 pm, right after American Idol. But that’s all I can tell you about this scene, because on a gray, wintery day during a visit to the show’s chilly set in Brooklyn, it was confirmed that any good magician never reveals their secrets.

Cutmore-Scott stars as Cameron Black, one of the most famous magicians in the world, the kind with lots of specials and lots of fans, even in the FBI — which works out well for him. Because when he’s on the hunt for information, he teams up with the bureau to help them solve cases and find criminals in return. The show’s got the recognizable base of an ABC Sunday night hour-long drama — plus magic. Literally. And lots of it.

Executive producers Greg Berlanti and Chris Fedak (Martin Gero and Sarah Schechter also serve as EPs) came up with the concept for the show, one that Fedak has nicknamed “Magician Impossible” nearly two years ago, shot the pilot one year ago, and this weekend audiences will see it for the first time. And you should know, it wasn’t a cheap pilot. “I don’t know if you can spend more money,” Fedak said of the hour of television that took over two weeks to shoot, even after losing a day of production due to a snow storm, and is “crazy jam packed with stuff,” which includes “3-4 action sequences that could be in a blockbuster movie.” And while Fedak credits the action scenes with being “at the heart of the show,” once it was picked up, they learned it would be necessary to “dial [it] back to two amazing, crazy deceptions, some small, some big” for each episode, and also find room to include those pesky elements known as character and story and emotion. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is.

Sure, Deception isn’t some wild departure from your typical procedure. Stripped of the magic, you’ve still got the FBI, a new weekly case at hand, and on overarching goal being worked toward throughout the season — at least for Cameron. But the magic, well, that’s what makes this show worth watching. “The magic part is so critical,” Fedak admitted. It’s the element that will afford viewers the chance to see something just a little bit new and unique for TV. With the help of illusionists David Kwong, who serves as co-producer and worked on Now You See Me, which Fedak credits as “showing that magic can be cool,” and Francis Menotti, who has performed for children’s birthday parties, theater productions, President Obama’s inauguration, and everything in between, the show has designed “deceptions” that not only look cool and slick, but that are also grounded in reality and able to be accomplished.

“Sometimes we actually do it,” Fedak explained. “Sometimes we don’t have enough time and we don’t want to break the law that day [“we don’t break the law,” he stressed], but our team could physically do this in the world.”

And it’s not just the team as a whole, but Cutmore-Scott specifically who has blown everyone’s minds with his magic skills since stepping into this role. “Jack may be the best I’ve ever worked with,” Menotti said with a mixture of pride and annoyance, explaining that he can text Cutmore-Scott a video of a magic trick and the actor will have it down six hours later. “What I thought I had to do was teach him basic sleight of hand, muscle movements, control, and observation; being able to aware of your surroundings and be aware of angles. What I didn’t realize I’d be teaching him, and what he’s learned on his own is how to work an audience.”

View this post on Instagram

Not 1, not 2, not 3… 4 days til #Deception kicks off. Sunday at 10/9c on ABC.

A post shared by Jack Cutmore-Scott (@jackcutmorescott) on Mar 7, 2018 at 10:50am PST

The actor, who previously appeared in Kingsman: The Secret Service and starred in the 2016 one-season FOX comedy, Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life, jumped right into the research. “We went to see real magic shows and we’d talk about them after,” Menotti recalled. “We had discussions not just about how the tricks work but specifically how the psychology of the magic worked.”

Cutmore-Scott is quick to clarify of his newly acquired magic skills, “The only reason I use them off set is so that I can use them on set, it’s all research,” with his girlfriend and family members at home serving as his most frequent audience. But perhaps even more than the magic skills, which he’s clearly got a knack for, Cutmore-Scott needed to practice his game face. “The hardest part is to actually not get overexcited when it works, staying calm as if it’s normal, because for Cameron it is normal; it’s just not for me. I’m only more impressed now that I’ve snuck a peek behind the curtain because you find out how much work goes into these tricks that are designed to look totally natural and magic. They’re supposed to look effortless and they are not.”

So much so that his co-star Ilfenesh Hadera, who plays FBI Agent Kay Daniels wants nothing to do with the magic on the show. “I don’t ask how things are done on the magic side because I don’t want them to think that I want them to start giving me magic tricks to do,” she laughed. “It’s incredible how fast Jack has learned to do so many of these really difficult tricks, a card trick or a coin toss. But knowing more how these are pulled off and orchestrated, it doesn’t make you any less impressed because you see the preparation and the dedication it takes to get these done.”

Hadera, who has appeared in the recent Baywatch movie and TV shows such as Billions and the Netflix remake of She’s Gotta Have It, finds herself in her very first series regular role, but has not had any magic training thus far. She has, however, had weapons training and toured the NYC FBI headquarters, as well as working closely with a retired FBI agent, enough to know that having an actual magician in the bureau wouldn’t be the worst idea. She even noted that it was rumored Houdini himself served as an informant at one point, as “The skills that [magicians] apply to their tricks are utilized by some of the top criminals in the world.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who does not like magic,” Hadera stated. “I think people are skeptical of it and sometimes get frustrated when they don’t understand it but everybody wants to watch it and figure out how it was done.” Oh, except don’t expect Deception to do just that: there will be no revealing of how things are actually done. “They don’t want to ruin magic or the careers of their colleagues, so they show you just enough,” Hadera said. “They are very careful not to be excommunicated by their own.”

“We want magicians to be excited,” Fedak said of the show, adding, “I do not want magicians mad at me.” In fact, if anyone is going to be peeved at Deception, it might be the residents of New York City, as the show has been filming all over town for the past few months and surely clogging up or closing down a street or two, and as Hadera pointed out, “The streets give it a uniqueness and a grit that not every show has.”

“New York is going to be a part of the show. It really couldn’t be anywhere else,” Fedak said. “Houdini made an elephant disappear every night here in the city so there’s a tradition of magic.”

While the show was based at studios in Brooklyn, they filmed not only all over the borough and in Manhattan but…in between as well. Nearly everyone involved in the show that we spoke with was excited about a scene they recently shot in the First Avenue tunnel near the United Nations building, a location rarely used for filming.

The locations won’t be the only cool visuals at play either. Deception is no stranger to interesting predicaments, cool sets, top-notch disguises and even an autonomous car — in what just might be the first on-screen self-driving car chase. The show easily blends genres from the aforementioned action, drama, comedy, and yes, even a bit of romance. Fedak, who admitted to being unfamiliar with the concept of “shipping” when he first started working on Chuck sure had to get acclimated quickly, and promises for Deception, “We’re definitely going to be exploring the relationships and there’s going to be love interests and were going to have romance,” only teasing that “It’s always interesting to see where chemistry lives in the show.”

But with a cast like this? The connections are surely there. Hadera is joined by Amaury Nolasco and Laila Robins as her FBI coworkers, and Cameron is backed up with a team that includes Lenora Crichlow, Justin Chon, and even Vinnie Jones, who Fedak confessed, “Vinnie did an episode of Chuck [and] was one of the few villains where I was like, I think someone’s going to get actually hurt.”

But it was Cutmore-Scott who not only anchored but also perfected the unique tone the show set out to convey. Fedak remembers sitting through endless auditions for the leading man and thinking, “Oh man, maybe I don’t know how to write, because sometimes it would be too serious or too jokey and it was tough.” But that all changed when the UK-born actor walked through the door — and go ahead, you can try to listen for that British accent during the show, but there’s not a trace of it to be found.

Fedak was unfamiliar with him or his work on Cooper Barrett, and while he initially mistook Cutmore-Scott’s focus as being extra intense, once the audition got going, “It blew me away. I always know when I’m in a really good audition because the actor walks out, the door closes, and I stand up. I just remember going, ‘That’s him.’ He was so fantastic. When people saw the audition, you saw the show. You see the magic, you see the charm, and you see a little bit of that old movie magic that I really like.”

Although Fedak wasn’t the only one feeling a bit unsure about it all at first. Once production began on episode two, Cutmore-Scott remembered, “I felt like I knew where the show was going and what it was going to be and I was excited, but you realize that the crew doesn’t know. They know about the show, they read the scripts, and in theory, they understand it.” But it was during a very quick and slick trick involving a body swap that really brought everyone on board with the project. “You [could] see the crew thinking, this isn’t gonna work,” Cutmore-Scott recalled. “But it worked on the first take and you saw everyone go, ‘Oh! Oh this is cool, this is really fun,’ and you could feel this sense of the crew getting on our side, that this is a little different and a little special. I don’t know if it will have that impact on the screen but for me it was a big moment.” Fedak also pointed to this particular scene as a momentous turning point in the production of the show.

Personally, I found the museum-set third episode of the series to be capable of pulling off some really cool moves. And sure, Deception might feel a bit silly or frivolous at times, but not only do they know and lean into this, it would also be odd if you didn’t find yourself, no matter how reluctantly, admitting, “That was pretty cool” at some of the stunts, trickery, visuals, or even comedic moments of the show. It’s an hour of TV that has figured out new ways to be witty without trying to outsmart viewers, remaining continuously cheeky and charming while also staying plausible. And yet: it’s a perfect escape show, a distraction from the fact that another workweek is ahead. Ta-da: you’ve just been entertained.

Where to watch Deception