Escape artist Matt Johnson tonight reveals the emotional reason behind his act, as he tries to pull the hood over Penn & Teller’s eyes on their hit series Fool Us.
Johnson’s performance on The CW show sees him locked in a box full of water, with his hands cuffed and chains attached to his limbs.
He has to escape before his body runs out of oxygen from the last gasp he takes before being locked in.
But in an interview with producers Johnson, from Canada, reveals the reason he does his act is because he wants to know what his brother, who has tuberous sclerosis, feels like when he suffers one of the seizures the condition causes.
He says: “When you’re watching your brother go through that…he can’t breathe, and there’s nothing you can do to help him breathe…I can’t even describe to you what that’s like.
“So the reason why I do this, the only reason I do this, the only reason I put myself through this, is because as a brother I want to understand what my brother goes through.
“He’s in there for 10 minutes some times, I’m trapped in there for two minutes, but the burning in the lungs…I get kind of a closer relationship in what he goes through.”
Tonight’s episode of Penn & Teller: Fool Is, which sees aspiring magicians perform their best trick to try and trick the legendary double act, also includes illusionist Siegfried Tieber, magician Jason Fields and fire-eater Jessica Jane.
Penn & Teller: Fool Us airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW.