By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
IN APRIL the celebrity magician Cosentino will launch the Australian leg of his Twisted Reality tour at Crown Casino. Before hitting the road, the illusionist spoke to LACHLAN MOORHEAD about how he left his humble beginnings in the City of Casey and how a book he borrowed from the local library shaped his career.
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AS A quiet kid growing up in Melbourne’s outer south-east, Paul Cosentino was too shy to even stand up in front of his friends in class.
Now the illusionist, known famously as ‘Cosentino’ and who lives in Endeavour Hills, has carved a career out of standing on stage and performing to thousands.
The escapologist’s star soared after a career-defining turn in the 2011 series of Australia’s Got Talent, and he continues to move from strength to strength.
But having battled with reading and writing difficulties from an early age, Cos, as he is known to his friends, admitted that he never would have foreseen himself becoming a magician.
“Not at all, if you look back, there’s no way this shy kid from Casey could get up in front of the classroom, now here’s a guy performing in front of thousands,” Cos, 32, said.
“And broadcast on TV to millions worldwide.”
Cosentino grew up in Lysterfield after moving with his family from Dandenong North when he was seven.
The family had shifted from having neighbours close on either side to an open block with the nearest neighbouring house still a short walk away.
It was here where Cosentino first discovered the world of magic.
With no one near his Lysterfield home to distract him, Cos honed his craft.
“It gave me time to practice my magic and to experiment with building different things, part of that allowed me to get creative,” he said.
“I think the fact that my neighbours were still a good walk away, and growing up there where I was to some degree isolated and kept to myself, gave me time to develop my skills.”
Introduced to magic at the age of 12, Cosentino said he was quite a late-comer to the art form, but credits a book he borrowed from his library with leading him down the rabbit hole.
“I borrowed my first magic book from the Casey Library, it was an encyclopedia of magic. I can’t make this stuff up,” Cos laughed.
“I was a very shy kid and had a lot of learning difficulties. I picked up this magic book full with Vaudevillian posters of magicians, but I didn’t want to sit and read it in the library.
“So Mum, who used to be school principal at Berwick Lodge, read the magic book to me and I started to break down the words and analyse them.
“I would break it down bit by bit, it was instructional learning.
“I came to understand what each word meant and I overcame this huge stumbling block in my life.
“It all started in that library.”
Cos continued to study magic throughout his high school years and began earning money through picking up gigs here and there.
“I was making pocket money out of shows, while other kids were working retail or at McDonalds, I was running about town doing shows at schools,” Cosentino said.
When he reached 17 the aspiring illusionist auditioned for the Cirque Du Soleil show, Saltimbanco, when they started looking for cast members in Australia in the late ’90s.
Cosentino ended up knocking back the five-year contract offered to him by the circus, but the experience reassured him that his future lay in magic.
Fast forward to 2015 and Cosentino’s TV show is broadcast to 40 countries around the world, while he recently finished a live tour of South-East Asia and North America, with Australia next.
“As soon as I overcame those huge learning issues, magic gave me a whole new sense of confidence and self-worth,” Cosentino said.
“It was organic; it became ingrained in my DNA to some degree.
“When you perform a trick and create wonderment or awe, it’s very powerful stuff. Like a drug, or an addiction.
“Seeing the audience’s reaction is very potent, even for a split second they question things – hang on, maybe I don’t understand how gravity works.”
For more information, visit www.cosentino.com.au.
