Derren Brown freaks people out. Though he's not a psychic, a medium or a mind reader, and though he possesses no powers of the paranormal, the 36-year-old Brit has gained international fame by wowing both live theater audiences and television viewers with shows and specials in which he seems to influence people to do his bidding and appears to pull information from others' minds. And now Brown is taking his show on the road, to America and specifically to the SCI FI Channel, as the central figure in Mind Control With Derren Brown, which kicked off on July 26 with the first of six one-hour episodes.

SCI FI Weekly recently spoke with Brown by telephone from London for an interview in which he previewed Mind Control, discussed the controversy he's occasionally created and revealed that someone once gave him a very memorable taste of his own medicine.If someone says to you flat out, "What do you do for a living?", how do you reply to that?

Brown: Normally, I make something up if they don't know, because it saves time, or I just lie and say something totally different because it gets around a whole conversation I know I'm going to have every time otherwise. But in terms of what I actually do, it is difficult [to define]. I have done it for seven years in the U.K., and I still don't really have a simple answer to it. I call myself a psychological illusionist, and even that was only to find some sort of label to give it because I kept getting asked. I worked as a magician, as a hypnotist and all sorts of areas in between, so I guess it's sort of a psychological form of illusion. It's a mixture of psychology and showmanship. It's easy to say what it looks like. It looks like mind reading or it looks like influence, but sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.At the end of the day, would "entertainer" be a good cover-all term?

Brown: That's what it says on my passport! I think it's important, actually, that it's clear that that is what it is, because the nature of what I do ... people often watch it and are unsure how literally to take it and how seriously to take it, so certainly in the U.K., where I'm better known, it's something I have to make very clear, that it is entertainment at the end of the day. It's not a serious documentary that you're watching. I'm an entertainer. I consider myself to be an entertainer first and foremost, so it should be taken as performance.Mind Control with Derren Brown is about to debut on the SCI FI Channel. Give us a preview. What will we see each week?

Brown: In the pilot, it involves me paying for things with blank paper around New York. Some of the pieces that are included were filmed in London. It's a transatlantic. [Later,] you'll see me with a couple of advertising executives at their office, and they ask me to come up with an advertising campaign for a series of taxidermy stores. You know, stuffed animals. They come up with a design, and I've already pretty much predicted what they're going to come up with, but the kicker is I explain exactly how it's done and how I kind of influenced them using the very techniques that they kind of use on us. As with a lot of the things in the show, I explain how it's done, how it works, which I think is important. I don't do it too much. I don't do it to the point that it would detract from the entertainment, but sometimes where I think the method is as interesting as the overall effect I'll explain how they're done as well. Talk a little bit about the people who turn up in your shows and specials. After you've seemingly read their minds or convinced them to rob a bank, are they in awe? Do they feel duped? Are they just confounded?

Brown: It depends. It really depends on what it is that they've been through. Some of the things that we do are quite dark, and I think, certainly in the U.K., where I'm more established, some of the things are very dark that people are put through. [It's] less so on this first series [for SCI FI]. I'm probably kind of testing the waters. Let's see what people enjoy.

A couple of things are important to me. First off, did they have a great time? Are they as amazed and intrigued by it as possible? Obviously the show has to be edited down to the timeslot on TV, so it's also very important that nothing gets changed dramatically between what they experience and what happens on TV as well. So that authenticity side of it is very important. And with the darker things, even if they appear to be a little cruel on the day, I think they're exhilarated by it and enjoy it even if it's presented so that it appears just kind of dark or cruel or scary.

I've had one guy nearly hit. It was actually a staring competition, and that's the title we've given it, and it might be in this first series for SCI FI. But that was specifically about making people feel troubled. I'm kind of having a staring competition and then freaking the person out and just seeing how far I can push that before I have to stop it and let them know that they're fine. And I nearly got hit by this guy. But that's as far as it's gone. Otherwise, they always seem to love it.How about Americans vs. Britons when it comes to what you do? Are Americans quicker to be confounded, surprised or scared? Is it the other way around?

Brown: We certainly have an image in [England] of Americans being far more open and responsive, and I think largely that's true. English people are terrified of embarrassment. Our one sort of drive in life is to avoid embarrassment at all costs, and sometimes that makes it difficult for people to open up on camera. Certainly in the States, especially in New York, where there's constant filming going on somewhere—and we were mainly filming in New York—people are very savvy and very used to it. I think that helped. On the other hand, it's not a David Blaine people-screaming-and-running-around sort of thing, either. That was not really the point of it. A big difference, but for me, is filming where I'm not known, because when I am known there is a certain amount of prestige that goes with that, that makes people more open to suggestion and makes them more responsive. You have generated some serious controversy, particularly with your specials involving you playing Russian roulette and you convincing a group of businesspeople to commit armed robbery. How far is too far, and what's the line between entertainment and something darker? It's a question we deal with a lot in the States, where something like Hostel Part II is one person's idea of fun but torture porn to someone else.

Brown: For me, I hardly watch TV. I don't have a TV. I had it taken out and a fish tank put in. But I generally just want to make stuff that I would want to watch. It's not about being controversial. A lot of the stuff I do hasn't been remotely controversial, but a few of the things I have done have been, and they kind of made headlines. But it's just about drama, I think, and about making things that feel resonant to people and work dramatically. There's more space to do [that] with the one-off hour specials that I have made.

That's not what I've done for SCI FI. For SCI FI, it's a mixture of all bits and pieces. Maybe in time I'll be able to do an hour special and concentrate on one story for an hour, like "Russian Roulette" or "Heist," which went out in the U.K. and was exciting. The first series ... I'm presuming there will be another one; I don't know ... but it's not too dark or too scary. Let's see what the general response is. I think as long as people are well taken care of and they enjoy it and it's responsibly done and I know how far I can take things as far as people's welfare, then I think it's up for grabs if it's interesting and dramatic and resonant and responsible. And it's always taken very seriously. It's never flippant or sensationalist for its own sake.

Having said that, of course, Americans are far more litigious than we are, and I think [American] TV channels are a little more careful in terms of what they'll put out. So I'll have to see how it goes.Last question. Has anyone ever been able to influence you the way you have influenced other people?

Brown: You know what? It was in New York, actually. I was naïve, and I did buy some camera equipment from a shop in Times Square, and I realized that was a terrible mistake. I paid, literally, about 15 times what I should have paid for the stuff. I was blown away. I was angry and all the rest of it, but amazed at how good they were. I went back about a year later and I went in just to have a look at the guys, because I'd come to loathe them. And I stopped a young British couple that were going to go in and buy some stuff. I kind of stopped them and said, "Look, don't go in. It's a scam." One of the shop assistants saw me doing this, came out and started asking me, "Oh, did we rip you off?" I was like, "Yes." He said, "Oh, you feel bad about it? Do you feel bad about it? Is it eating you up?" I just started to feel terrible all over again and I thought, "I can't believe it. They've won again!" So I'm obviously more susceptible to it than I would have thought.