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Credo: Philippe Petit

High-wire artist, 59

Interview by Kaleem Aftab

Philippe Petit: 'My philosophy is not to try to get the audience to react in a particular way, but to throw myself into a performance'

Anna Schori

Philippe Petit: 'My philosophy is not to try to get the audience to react in a particular way, but to throw myself into a performance'

I believe...

Nothing is impossible. You can make an incredible journey one step at a time.

You can not take life on the wire lightly. If you are foolish you will lose your life. I see the wire not as a dead piece of cable, but as something alive that I have to have a dialogue with.

A new life started for me after I walked between the Twin Towers [in 1974]. The phone started to ring and I was invited to do things all over the world and that continues today. But that doesn't mean that I don't still struggle and fight to create the theatre of my imagination.

Watch a trailer for 'Man on Wire'

There is no room for the death of the towers in my story; it is about their life.

Sleeping with a total stranger after completing the walk was a way to celebrate life, an absurd moment of revelry. It's a poetic evocation.

Being a pickpocket is an art form. It is part of my character. After learning magic as a kid I learnt how to juggle, which is another branch of magic. I then discovered there is another art, close to juggling, called pickpocketing. I have just had a book published in France called Art of the Pickpocket.

Accomplishing something meaningful and inspiring people gives you an immense joy and profound satisfaction.

I am a strange kind of wire-walker because I do many things other, but for me they're all almost the same. I'm as happy writing books, juggling in the streets or doing lectures on creativity as I am wire-walking.

Watch a clip from 'Man on Wire'

My philosophy is not to try to get the audience to react in a particular way, but to throw myself into a performance to the best of my talent and ability.

'Man on Wire', a documentary about Petit's 1974 high-wire walk across the Twin Towers, is in cinemas nationwide.

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