Editor's note: David Copperfield, the most popular and expensive magician in the world, will perform in Guangzhou this weekend. The following is an interview China Daily reporter Hu Xiaodan conducted with the magician.

Question: You have said that your inspirations are based on your dreams. Do you often have many crazy dreams?

Answer: Yes, I do. You can see them on stage every night.

Q: Besides your dreams, where do other inspirations come from?

A: Comes from people's dreams. People walking through the Great Wall of China, for example, that's someone else's idea. You know, walking through a wall is the kind of thing magicians have done in history.

Q: And you turned the dream into reality?

A: Reality, yeah, but somebody said what can you do with the Great Wall of China after you make the Statue of Liberty disappear. So that's what we did. I took it seriously rather than just a joke. But ... I listen to what people are saying; they are saying that it is ideas that prompt my show.

Q: How long did you prepare for that stunt to walk through the Great Wall?

A: Um, three years. And that's good. That idea came almost twenty years ago. I'm very old now. But, you know the other inspirations come from stories in my life not just dreams. I tell others stories with my magic. In my life, my magic comes in the way a song writer writes, for example, when your girlfriend leaves you, later I write a song like "O, my girlfriend left me, what am I to do?" Or you know, you write a movie about your girlfriend leaving you and you call it "my girlfriend left me" and then put it on film. I do the same thing with magic.

Q: How can you integrate elements like romance, comedy and magic into one great show?

A: How can I? I just want to have fun, you know. So the comedy just comes out of having a fun spirit. I am doing it because I am not taking myself too seriously. The romance is easy because I am quite a romantic kind of a guy. Romance and comedy, and the dangerous stuff is just because I'm a little bit crazy.

Q: What usually is the audiences' reaction to your magic? Are they dumbfounded?

A: I have lots of goals. I try to get many kinds of reactions, part of which keeps me going. It is not just enough to hear the audience being just "wow" amazed. That's not enough. They have to laugh a lot, they have to cry a little. So they have to really mirror human being's different emotions.

Q: What kind of reaction do you like best from the audience?

A: I think when they get emotionally involved in the magic, I feel really rewarded because when they are emotionally involved, that's something that really never happened with magic performances before. You know, it happens with movies; it happens with music. But when they are emotionally involved, it does make a difference in my art form.

Q: People said that you have elevated magic to a new level, how can you do that?

A: I think it's by combining all these art forms into magic. By taking magic, making it emotional and making it funny, telling stories with it and doing different things that haven't been done before. I've taken it to many different areas.

Q: Have you ever changed your style through so many years?

A: I transformed my image a lot. My personal life has changed a lot, and my magic is different in many ways. It has become a lot cooler and a little bit more personal. I am not afraid to share things and be more honest with my show. You know I was very very kind of stagy and posed a lot, very mysterious. Now I kind of hang out like this: I dress casually in my show, try to appear easier going.

Q: You were a quiet boy, right?

A: Ask my mum, I am still a quiet boy now.

Q: How long have you been preparing this show "Portal?"

A: A couple of years. It keeps evolving, keeps changing, I am adding new things, new illusions. Now I am here.

Q: What is the most difficult part of this show? Making an audience disappear?

A: Everything has difficulty, every thing in its own way. I am having fun with this show. Not difficult in that way.

Q: Any failure in your performance?

A: Every show. But people cannot find out. I have a plan B and plan C to solve that problem. In every show, something will go a little bit wrong. You make it invisible to your audience. And it keeps me on my toes.

Q: Will there be anything new when you perform in Guangzhou? Any difference between the show you performed in Hong Kong and Singapore?

A: Yes, I am adding new illusions. There's a new piece where I spin my body and run in circles like I crack my back. A back cracker.

Q: And what was the turning point in your life? How did you go from a quiet boy to a showy magician?

A: I think the reason I do it is because I am still very shy inside. Magic helps me to overcome that. I think I'm still shy.

Q: When did you begin to have an interest in magic?

A: At eight.

Q: Any influence from your family?

A: No.

Q: What did they expect you to be?

A: Doctor, lawyer. A journalist, just like you.

Q: Why did you take an interest in magic at eight?

A: I have a feeling for it.

Q: Feeling for it? You learn on your own?

A: From books, from the library and inventing things after a while.

Q: What are your favourite stunts?

A: Portal illusion, I travel around the world in a second. Close my eyes and take somebody with me and I just go.

Q: Any difference between your magic with other magicians in the US, or in the world?

A: I think so. You know, I am a guy next-door, who can do a lot of cool stuff.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: I've collected artistic models, they are wooden, things you can pose, wooden men and women you can pose. And artists will use them to pose and make paintings from. They are very beautiful. And I got them from famous artists, famous painters. I also collect antique arcade machines, 100 years old, that you put a coin in and it tells you your fortune. Or you put a coin in, an old lady hands you a card and tells your fortune. It can also test your strength; play games like baseball, golf, shooting gallery, many kinds of things.

Q: In one local newspaper, a Chinese magician said that he will try to crack your secrets to see your flaws in the performance. Are you afraid?

A: They should not worry about my ideas. They should develop their own ideas; I think they should take inspiration from my illusions but not copy them.