Char Margolis, Stuart Krasnow | Interviews

Krasnow: Each episode is a journey that reflects Char's own life. For instance, we went to Palm Springs, where Char was supposed to do a book signing, and during the book signing she would end up reading for some of the people, which is something she normally does. But in this case, we used that road trip as an excuse to check out all kinds of arenas. Char went to a skateboard park, where she literally did psychic readings for kids on skateboards. We also went to a clothing-optional resort, and Char did readings on stark naked people. I think that really threw her off, because it was hard for her to concentrate. She went to a diner and read for a waitress. She went on a radio show that was run by the local police department. She read for a police officer who broke down in tears. The point of this show is to take Char's gift and to bring it into the public at large.

Margolis: I can't go anywhere without somebody wanting a reading. When they know who I am and what I do, everybody wants a reading.

Krasnow: It's so much fun to shoot this show. The shows that I love to do are the ones where I get surprised by my own show. What happens in front of our eyes is something we never could have accounted for, much like covering a football game, where all the cameras are set up, but we don't know where the football is going to go. When Char is doing a reading—the cameraman, the sound guy, the producers, the subjects themselves—nobody, not even Char, knows where it's going to end up. And allowing the viewer in to seeing that unexpected reaction is what's going make people want to watch this television show. You know the people Char reads are going to be telling the story of meeting Char and being on the show for the rest of their lives. It's going to be one of those moments that's set in stone for them.

How does Psychic at Large differ from other series, like Crossing Over?

Margolis: Most other psychics go into an audience and pick up on the person that they get a hit on and start reading for that person in more detail. I just go to one person, and that's it. I don't need a whole audience just to pick the one that I can pick up on the best.

Krasnow: The strongest part of this show is its brutal honesty. We're not in a studio. We don't have an audience that's looking for readings and looking for answers. Since we're going up to people cold, there are people who get a little bit angry. There are people who don't believe the information they're getting. There are people who think they're being set up on a hidden-camera show. Ultimately, what I think we get is a much more powerful show.

What do you say to skeptics who assume you gather information in advance about the people Char reads?

Krasnow: We don't even know people's names in advance. There's really no way that we could have fed Char information. You can only control so much. The one quality of the show that I'm most proud of is that it is real. It is genuine. This is not going to be one of those psychic shows where she's going to have a great experience with every single person she speaks to. There are some people who won't get a good reading at all, and she'll explain why they frustrated her. We're going into environments where psychic readings have never been done. We do something that is very raw, very real, very relatable, and that has a sense of humor. We're going to show Char being vulnerable and being powerful. You'll see her when she gets upset or is having a good time. To show someone as they truly are and to show how her gift is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse is a really different way to go in an area where we've seen so much of the same kind of programming.

Char, how did you get started? It's not exactly the kind of job you can find described in a career guide!

Margolis: I made my own path. Not everybody can take call-ins on talk shows, and I'm fortunate enough that I can. That's how I started, by taking calls on those shows and Larry King. I've just been really guided on how to do this. To be honest with you, I was offered my own show on Lifetime 12 years ago, and I turned it down. I turned it down because I didn't feel I was ready. To me, it was about getting the work out properly rather than getting famous or rich. They offered me those 900 lines way before Dionne Warwick knew what that even was. I thought it was unethical and so wrong, and I turned it down.

How would you compare yourself to other psychics?

Margolis: People think all psychics are alike. They don't understand that there's different levels, different kinds of people. There's good and bad in everything. There's honest and dishonest. There are ethical and unethical people in every profession, and I pride myself on my ethics. Some psychics think that they're the only ones who can do it. They're put up on pedestals—not all of them, but some of them. They want to be treated like they're the only ones, and that's not right. That's not what it's about. What it's really about is, we all have a sixth sense. It's your intuition. You learn to communicate, you learn to listen to it, and you make your life better by preventing problems and obtaining goals. It's that simple.

The two of you have been working together for a long time. How did you meet?

Margolis: Stuart worked for Ricki Lake, and I was a guest. He had just moved to L.A., and I had an idea for a show and tried to get a friend of mine to do it, and her agent wasn't so crazy about it. I wrote up this other idea. The very next day, I was at Jerry's Deli, and I ran into Stuart. He said, "Hey, do you have any ideas?" And I said, "It's funny you should mention that—I just wrote up one last night." That's how we started. More important than anything, we've become best of friends. We're like family.

Why did it take so long for Psychic at Large to happen?

Margolis: Stuart and I have been working together for eight or 10 years, trying to get a show out.

Krasnow: We have done many different projects together along the way. It's been a comedy of errors. But I think, as Char believes, timing is everything, and things happen when they're meant to happen.

Margolis: We were bought by three different companies, and nobody ever put us on the air. Fox held us up, NBC held us up, and then VH-1 held us up.

Krasnow: We did a pay-per-view special together. We did a pilot for a daytime talk show about a year and a half before John Edward's show was on the air. We did a pilot for VH-1. The person who bought that ended up leaving VH-1. A lot of shows take incredible paths before they get on air, and we feel that what's great is what we did culminated in just the right kind of show at just the right time. We made a tape where we followed Char for a day in her life and did all these readings in unusual places, like a hair salon and the dog park. It was this cinema verite approach to doing a show about a psychic that caught the eye of SCI FI. When they bought the show, they said, "This is the show we want."

This seems to be a great time for shows about psychics. What do you think about the popularity of series like Medium and Ghost Whisperer?

Margolis: When you watch Medium and Ghost Whisperer—they're good shows, they're great—but they're scripted shows. They're not real. Mine is real. I think that people are hungry for this kind of work. There have been some of us in the media for many years, trying to infiltrate the knowledge. In the '80s I was on with Regis Philbin in L.A., on a local morning show. He gave me my start in television. My thinking is that people are looking for more answers. People know that they have a gift of intuition. A lot of people feel that there is a spirit world, and I think that what I am is a touchstone for them to feel that there's opportunity to connect with that level.

Why do you think people are so interested in psychics right now?

Margolis: I don't know. Maybe because people are more frightened in the world. Maybe because people are saying, "Oh, there might be a terrorist attack, and maybe if we knew ahead of time where that terrorist attack was, we would prevent a problem from happening." There were people at the World Trade Center who were told to go back into that second building, and they had a feeling not to go back in. They didn't go back in, and they lived to talk about it. People are living more in fear right now. Europe is used to having wars and people invading their land, but we've never had this. I'm not saying this is the only reason, but I do think people want more answers right now, because people are living in fear in America more than they ever have.

I noticed on your Web site (www.psychicchar.com) that you're going to the Netherlands. What is that about?

Margolis: I have a prime-time TV show in the Netherlands. It's on their number-one network. Honestly, I can't walk on the streets there. People scream, they yell, they go nuts. My publicist there says I'm more famous than Oprah, like Oprah meets Madonna. I think I'm in my sixth season now.

What is your hope for Psychic at Large?