TVGuide.ca Interview with Haim Goldenberg

Keep your spoons away from Goldenberg!

Towering over a huddled group of journalists, and with a shaved head and futuristic glasses, Haim Goldenberg recalls the famous Israeli mentalist Uri Geller telling TV audiences that everyone has the ability to become a mentalist.

He was just six years old, but he believed Geller and  tried to bend a spoon every morning thereafter. But as weeks and months passed by, Goldenberg  had yet to change the utensil. “This is what made me different from other kids,” says Goldenberg, “because I really believed.”

Goldenberg did not stop believing in himself and two years later, he finally bent a spoon. He pulled out all of the spoons in the kitchen and bent them, and then he moved on to forks. “From that day on I believed I could do anything,” says Goldenberg, who hosts new show featuring his mentalist abilities, GoldMind.

In a modern brick-wall room at a Toronto-based film and television production company, Goldenberg recreates this mastered act for the reporters. He grabs a silver spoon resting beside a platter of sandwiches and holds it, gazing intensely at the utensil until the top starts to droop like putty.

He stops when the spoon is nearly bent in half, which takes him less than one minute. The utensil feels rock-solid; no amount of pulling will bend it back.

Of course, since that day in Israel, the master mentalist has learned how to do more than bend kitchen utensils. From driving a car blindfolded and reading minds, he has amazed audiences around the world with his abilities.

In 2002, he was featured in Newsweek after being the highlight of the world’s biggest magic convention in New York. Goldenberg can make participants see things like specific numbers; he can read minds and even stop his own pulse.

Today, Goldenberg is one of the world’s Top 10 mentalists and GoldMind is his new platform. The half-hour reality show features Goldenberg baffling viewers with acts ranging from a car-crushing guessing game to putting dreams into people’s minds. After initial audiences screened the show,  Goldenberg says, “The only problem they said, was that they wanted to see more.”

Despite his accomplishments, Goldenberg’s parents still hoped he would change careers early on. “At first, they thought I was a crazy kid; then they saw,” says Goldenberg. “They support me and trust me. Still, from time to time they say, ‘Why don’t you become a doctor?’”

Although viewers want more of Goldenberg’s magic, he says, “This is the real magic for me – wondering.” He maintains that he has no magical powers and only uses skills every person can acquire.

But participants on GoldMind certainly take risks. Before one guest gets her first tattoo, Goldenberg reads her mind and puts her chosen tattoo in the artist’s head. There are no prior drawings or discussions of her ideal tattoo, yet the tattoo artist inks the woman’s back with the colourless calia lily she wanted.

Some participants risk more than potentially bad permanent markings on their skin; one woman sits in a passenger seat while Goldenberg drives blindfolded on a busy road – even passing a cyclist. With acts like these, viewers do more than just sit on the edge of their seat – they grip the armrests, screaming “WHAT? ARE YOU INSANE?!”

GoldMind has a Candid Camera-meets-Criss Angel Mindfreak feel to it, with different acts that baffle participants. But GoldMind isn’t just a bag of magic tricks bunched together for a half-hour show; it has a flow with themes like ego, fear and gambling to connect the bits.

And unlike other shows featuring hosts with unbelievable abilities, GoldMind is not filmed in locations known for their unusual performers, like Las Vegas; rather it is filmed in Toronto. Viewers see local landmarks like the St. Lawrence Market and the sign of Frans Restaurant. Mary Darling, the CEO of WestWind Pictures and executive producer of GoldMind, describes the show as a “postcard of love from Toronto.”

From taxi drivers to buff gym members, the participants Goldenberg finds are shocked by his incredible mentalist abilities. It’s a jam-packed show that definitely sparks conversion among viewers.

See more of the mentalist on GoldMind’s debut season, Sundays at 6 and 9 p.m. on TVtropolis.