I participated in this Deception Q&A as part of the Disney Studios/ABC-hosted A Wrinkle In Time Event.

Laila Robins as Special Agent Deakins, Vinnie Jones as Gunter Gustafsen, Lenora Crichlow as Dina Clark, Jack Cutmore-Scott as Cameron Black/Jonathan Black, Ilfenesh Hadera as Kay Daniels, Amaury Nolasco as Mike Alvarez and Justin Chon as Jordan Kwon. (ABC/Bob D’Amico)
Crime, mystery and magic combine in the new ABC Series Decption. Last month I had the chance to chat with Creator and Executive Producer Chris Fedak & Co-Producer David Kwong to chat about the show.

DECEPTION – “Pilot” – When his career is ruined by scandal, superstar magician Cameron Black has only one place to turn to practice his art of deception, influence and illusion – the FBI. Using every trick in the book and inventing new ones, he will help the government catch the world’s most elusive criminals while staging the biggest illusions of his career, on “Deception”. (ABC/David Giesbrecht)
The idea for Deception came from Executive Producer Greg Berlanti saying he wanted to do a show about magic. “I didn’t have any magic show ideas,” says Fedak. “And then the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the fact that if you’re a magician. or if you’re an illusionist like Copperfield or David Blaine, it’s like you have a team, and I love shows about teams.”
Creating a show with a magician at the center required working with actual magicians who could assist with the world of illusions. Kwong started the process by meeting with the writers. “He did a class where he essentially went through different theories of magic, put them up on the board, then we talked about them,” Fedak says of Kwong. Then it was a matter of merging the magic with the story.
Although the show does feature a male magician, that doesn’t mean there are only male magicians. “One thing we were excited about was having a female magician [on the show], because there had been some in the past, but always in very few numbers. And I do think that there is some fourteen-year-old girl right now who’s going to be an international superstar in ten years,” says Kwong. And not just the one. Kwong promised more “female bad guys and female filmmakers coming up, too.”

Louise Bishop | Mom Start
Of course, you can’t have a Q&A with a magician in the room and not have at least a little bit of magic. Here’s me very daintily (pinkies up!) pulling a card that would somehow end up later in his back pocket.
Deception premieres March 11 at 10|9c on ABC. You can catch up with any episodes you miss online or streaming on the ABC app.
“Deception” is from writer/executive producer Chris Fedak (“Chuck”) and executive producers Greg Berlanti, Martin Gero and Sarah Schechter. Illusionist David Kwong (“Now You See Me”) will co-produce.
“Deception” stars Jack Cutmore-Scott as Cameron Black/Jonathan Black, Ilfenesh Hadera as Kay Daniels, Lenora Crichlow as Dina Clark, Amaury Nolasco as Mike Alvarez, Justin Chon as Jordan Kwon, Laila Robins as Special Agent Deakins and Vinnie Jones as Gunter Gustafsen
The series is from Berlanti Productions and Quinn’s House in association with Warner Bros. Television. “Deception” is directed by David Nutter, who is also executive producer.