Notable Film & Television Work
He also acts as a Magical Advisor inventing magic tricks and illusions for feature films, television shows, theatre and stadium productions. Source: IMDb
Freedman was the Magic Consultant for the 2006 film The Illusionist starring Edward Norton and Aaron Johnson both of whom he taught sleight of hand and stage illusions . Norton said that "James is one of the ultimate all-stars in his field today".
He was asked by Roman Polanski to teach Sir Ben Kingsley and other actors the art of picking pockets for the movie Oliver Twist (2005) and is listed in the credits as a Pickpocket Consultant.
In 2012 he also taught pickpocket skills to Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen for their roles as Monsieur and Madame Thenardier in Les Misérables directed by Tom Hooper.
He worked in London and on location in Serbia for The Brothers Bloom a 2008 movie directed by Rian Johnson. The movie stars Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz who learned sleight of hand magic from Freedman.Original Report
In 2010 Freedman advised on ‘Dip’ written by Simon Lewis and directed by Lisa Gornick; a crime drama about a street pickpocket played by Robert Sheehan. James Freedman choreographed all the pickpocket sequences and taught Robert Sheehan the skills needed for his role as a street thief. Original Report
In 2008 and 2009 James Freedman and Martyn Rowland created magic effects and taught presenter Thomas Brezina magic tricks for the Austrian children's TV show Trickfabrik broadcast on ORF. The show, which included magic tricks which viewers could learn and perform themselves, won an Intermedia-Globe-Silver-Award at the WorldMediaFestival (2010) and was also broadcast by the German children’s network KI.KA.
He was also consulted to advise on the critically acclaimed short film ‘ARK’, written by Charlie Williams (British writer) and directed by Mal Woolford. Freedman advised on “traditional magic methods” to allow Woolford’s vision of a four minute single camera shot with no image manipulation, no editing and no CGI. IMDb Listing
James Freedman was specialist consultant for the BBC One drama Hustle, for which he trained the principal actors, notably Robert Vaughn and Adrian Lester, how to cheat at poker.
He also worked as a specialist consultant for the popular BBC spin-off series The Real Hustle where he is credited here as Pickpocket Consultant.
Read more about this topic: James Freedman (magician)
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