Stepping Out of the Straitjacket

The role of legendary escape artist Harry Houdini seems to have made a lasting impression on actor Johnathon Schaech, who plays the “magician’s magician” in TNT’s “Houdini,” which premieres Sunday.

Resting on a chair in Schaech’s hotel suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills is the straitjacket he wore to re-create some of Houdini’s amazing escape stunts. The darkly handsome actor, best known as the lead singer in Tom Hanks’ “That Thing You Do!,” demonstrates his dexterity with cards by performing a clever card trick for his visitor.

“I learned various things . . .sleight-of-hand movements like a half-card cut,” Schaech says, cutting the cards. “I’m not saying I’m very good at it. It takes a lot of practice. During the course of filming, I was getting pretty strong with my technique. I never stopped with the cards during production. I would be cutting my cards over and over and over again as I was talking to people.”

“Houdini,” which also stars Stacy Edwards as Houdini’s beloved wife and assistant Bess, has long been a pet project of writer-director Pen Densham (“Moll Flanders”).

“Here is a man who invented himself, who was an Horatio Alger success story,” Densham explains. “I think we have always been intrigued by underdogs. It’s funny to think of Houdini as an underdog, but in that time in that world, coming from literally deep poverty with no social roots to help him, he did an extraordinary thing.”

Born Erich Weiss in 1874 (where is up for historical debate), he first worked as a trapeze artist. When he became a magician in the 1890s, he changed his name to Houdini, after 19th century magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. He quickly made a name for himself around the world with his “challenge’ acts, in which he would escape from handcuffs, prison cells and straitjackets. Later escape stunts included his famous “Water Torture Cell” and “Walking Through a Wall.”

Though Houdini has been dead seven decades, his name and his amazing stunts live on. “There isn’t a magician that’s more famous than Houdini even now,” says Densham. “He was like a rock star in his time. He was a Barnum of great proportions. He made sure the publicity was there. He dangled only from the roofs of newspaper buildings. He did nude escapes in the winter and jumps in the summer, because he knew that ‘nude’ would make people read about it.”

Before his death in 1926 from appendicitis, Houdini crusaded against fraudulent mediums and mind readers. Still, he and his wife made a pact that the surviving member would hold a seance each year to attempt to communicate with each other. Beth died more than 50 years ago, yet the seance continues each Halloween.

This year, both Densham and Schaech attended the event in Las Vegas, where Densham also screened the movie.

“It was really wild,” Schaech says. “There were about 20 people there. Everyone had a connection with Houdini. All of these people were around this table trying to bring back Harry Houdini.”

Schaech found it “a little bit farfetched. Everybody puts their hands on the table and says, ‘Harry, please come back and unlock the locks. Move something.’ Harry would love Vegas now. All the magicians are there--Lance Burton and Penn & Teller.”

Before filming began, Schaech was able to get his hands on an old, primitive recording of Houdini performing his act. “It was the hardest thing to find,” the actor says. “I listened to it and listened to it. He used a theatrical voice, so I basically used my theatrical voice.”

One of the participants at the seance was more than impressed with Schaech’s performance.

“No matter what the critics say about my performance, I have been given one of the greatest compliments,” the actor says. “This man at the seance had talked with Houdini. He looked at me and said, ‘I tell you, my eyes and ears aren’t the same, but I swear that was Houdini’s voice who came through that screen. I was floored.’ ”

Densham read a lot of actors for Houdini and thought Schaech was best able to capture both the magician’s sweet side and the darker aspect of his nature--”these deep roots of volcanic anger.”

The filmmaker also discovered that the athletic Schaech was more than willing to do Houdini’s stunts, including being strapped in a straitjacket and hung upside down 15 feet in the air, as well as being submerged and locked into a metal milk container.

Schaech recalls he had to fight Densham to do some of the activities. “He didn’t want me put at risk. I was getting cuts on my head and banged up and all I kept saying was, ‘Put me out there. You have to let me do this. I am going to be fine. If I’m injured I’ll still go on.’ ”

The actor didn’t seem to have much trouble duplicating Houdini’s feats. Straitjackets, says Schaech, are made for “people who are insane, so someone who is not insane can think through it. If a regular individual is put into a straitjacket, they probably couldn’t get out of it. But if they had a little bit of training, they would have a good shot. So I just trained. I trained my physical. I trained my mental. I trained my knowledge of it and I could do it!”

“Houdini” airs Sunday at 8, 10 p.m. and midnight on TNT; it repeats Wednesday at 8 p.m.