The art of trickery, one-upmanship in ‘Man V Expert’
“I don’t accept answers that I don’t understand,” declares Alexis Conran, host of Discovery Channel’s “Man V Expert,” in a phone interview.
Conran, who appeared in Discovery’s 2014 series “Mind Control Freaks,” adds, “It’s not good enough for me when someone goes, ‘Oh, this works because of something.’ I need to break it down, take it apart, find out exactly how it works…and when I pick up something—whether it’s magic or shooting or fishing or playing football—I don’t do things by halves.”
ALEXIS Conran, con man, magician and host of “Man V Expert”
The six-part series (Wednesdays, 9 p.m.), about Conran outdoing professionals in their areas of expertise, requires trickery and clever conning on his part. He finds ways to cheat in athletic activities, and even pass a lie detector test. Conran says these cons demand careful planning, and can be physically and mentally demanding. “[If ] I’m going to do something, I need to be good at it. Otherwise, I don’t bother. I’m a bad loser…but I sort of lucked out with this show because it really was almost tailor-made to what I really am, as a person.”
Expert cheater
Conran was born in Paris but grew up in Greece. He studied acting in London.
After acting school, Conran became a professional magician and an expert in cheating at card games. His knowledge in the world of con artistry was used in the BBC’s 2003 TV show “Hustle,” for which he had been tapped as consultant for its writers and actors. Years later, he appeared in TV specials about magic, as either presenter or consultant producer.
Outsmarting people, he says, comes naturally for him. “My area of expertise is deception. I’ve been a longtime student of magic. And I used to do a show (in 2005) that traveled around the world called ‘The Real Hustle,’ which was all about scams and cons. So, everywhere I look, in my hobbies, in my professions…what I’m actually doing is, I’m deceiving or finding a way to deceive the people that I’m working with or against.”
While that sounds negative, he explains that there’s more to it than lying: “What I do is [study the] psychology of why people are willing to believe things, why people get deceived, and understand what makes people tick. Once you know what makes them tick, you’re able to do a lot more interesting things!”
He says he became a trickster at a young age. “I guess I started conning people when I was a child but then, all children do. I think the personality I have is that of a Discovery viewer, really, which is I’m curious about how things work and why things work.”
On choosing tricks for the show, Conran reveals that it’s, well, a “tricky thing” to decide: “There are some experts that we would want to take on, but we sometimes didn’t get around to figuring out a way that we would be able to beat them. So, the way the show developed was a healthy balance between experts we really wanted to take on, and methods that we knew were doable!”
As for the entertainment value of “Man V Expert,” Conran says: “It’s massively entertaining. It’s not a science show; [viewers] love the fact that all the way up until the very last minute, you don’t know if I’m going to beat the expert. And, I must tell you that I don’t win all the challenges; I do lose a few. It was a decision that we took very, very early on. If I lost, then we would show it. So, it’s a genuine competition that you’re watching on screen!”
Through it all, the con artist says, the audience can learn practical lessons. “The show does go very big. So, we’re using lasers, forces of nature, or some very dangerous things I wouldn’t recommend anybody do,” he says. “But interspersed in there are things you can use in everyday life…[There’s] a lot in there that people can walk away with!”
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