By ASH HODGKINSON can’t quite remember when he realised he’d ‘arrived’. Maybe it was just recently, while holidaying on the Greek island of Mykonos, where he met and performed a card trick for the American rapper Lil Tjay, leaving him speechless. Or perhaps it was before that, in August, when he was called backstage at the Sydney Opera House to perform another trick for another American musician, Khalid, leaving the singer similarly awed. But most likely, it was back in May, when he stood on stage inside Sydney’s State Theatre alongside Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy for the premiere of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the film which marked Hodgkinson’s big-screen debut.
“It’s so weird and trippy in my head, because when I’m doing these, it feels so normal,” Hodgkinson tells me a few days ahead of this photoshoot. “It’s still crazy to me how just doing videos in my bedroom or showing a card trick to my dad has led me to meeting these people.”
Curious and unconventional as it may seem, Hodgkinson’s journey from obscurity to famous TikTok magician – he’s fast approaching 10 million followers on the app – was a product of fortuitous timing, dedication and, yes, magic. In the last few years, TikTok has become a hive of niche-driven subcultures, creating and revamping trends for Gen Z and Gen Alpha in the same way that Instagram, Facebook, MySpace and Friendster did for previous generations of young people. And not even the millennia-old art of magic is exempt.
Dating back as far as ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, magic and illusion have left audiences enchanted, awestruck, terrified, bewildered and entertained throughout history. “Magic is the practical application of a false conception of natural laws, or the supposed manifestation of human will and power over the supernatural,” American writer and actor Elizabeth Robins wrote in The Atlantic back in 1882. “In reality, as generally accepted, it is theurgia, or the working of miracles and wonders.”
It was the miracle-working that first appealed to an 11-year-old Hodgkinson. Speaking to him now, his easy manner reflects a charming self-confidence, but both are recent acquisitions. “I struggled a lot in school, and I didn’t really have any friends or any interests, and I grew up with bad ADHD and anxiety,” he tells me. “We did lots of therapy and stuff, trying to figure out what was sort of ‘wrong with me’,” he says, making air quotes with his hands. “I found magic and then everything just fell into place.”
Seeing a musician busking in Sydney first piqued Hodgkinson’s interest in the artform. But he recognises there was something deeper at play than fascination. As Robins wrote more than a century ago, a magician appears to be a master of their own universe – someone who can bend the laws of the natural world to their will. For a kid struggling with ADHD, that’s a revolutionary concept. “I wanted to control everything,” he confesses. “Anything that was a little bit uncertain in my life, I was like, This is not good . . . it just freaked me out.”
A magic trick, though enigmatic to its viewer, can be broken down into a series of steps. At its core, it’s basic methodology, offering an appealing sense of order to someone whose world feels immensely disordered. That street magician had seemed completely at ease and in control, and Hodgkinson wanted to feel the same way. So, he dedicated himself to learning as many magic tricks as he could. He studied them online, dragged his parents along to countless live shows, found like-minded friends and a mentor. By 13, he was busking in Pitt Street Mall and working on the showmanship side of things while coming to terms with the unpredictability of live performance. “Some crazy shit happens in the city,” he laughs. “I remember we got robbed at one point, mid show.”
He began posting videos on YouTube, showing off his sleight-of-hand tricks, before shifting gears to TikTok when the app took off in the late 2010s. In the final exam weeks of his HSC year, his dedication to making and posting multiple videos per day paid off as his follower count spiked from 1000 to one million. “I was like, Oh, my God, this is fucking crazy. What is going on?” he recalls. As more and more followers came aboard, lucrative brand partnerships followed, as did invitations to perform alongside everyone from The Wiggles to British actor and comedian Simon Pegg.
He wagers his TikTok success is partly the result of giving people something they didn’t know they wanted: magic content. But it’s also to do with the way he pulls back the metaphorical curtain, revealing tricks of the trade and breaking the classic rule that a magician never reveals his secrets. Such rule-breaking travels particularly well on TikTok, a platform we turn to for BTS content, life hacks and explainers. But it’s also helped to bring the age-old rituals of magic into a cooler, more contemporary context.
“It’s such an old art form, and I think it’s had a bit of a stigma in terms of being [uncool],” Hodgkinson admits. “I feel like there was an era – maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago – [where] it was like, old guys with top hats and rabbits. I know there’s still a big community like that, which is very . . . unfriendly, in some parts of the world. But this new age of magic and the people who are coming into it, it’s so exciting to see the fresh faces and the new vibes people are bringing to it.”
As much as magic has brought him joy and connection, Hodgkinson continues to embrace his own evolution. “As you grow, your dreams change, and things that you thought were important aren’t as important anymore,” he explains. TikTok views used to be his goal, until he accumulated millions of them yet found himself feeling unfulfilled. Then, he began to realise that the performative side of magic scratched his creative itch. “The process of creating is something I love so much, whether it’s building a magic prop or reading a script. And then to have the finished product of the video that I’ve edited and posted, or the film that we’ve shot – it’s just such a satisfying process.”
It’s with this in mind that he set out on a new pursuit, pivoting to acting. Already, he’s got serious credits under his belt. After appearing in a short film and a Seven Network drama in 2021, he was tapped to appear in an episode of the first season of Netflix’s smash-hit Heartbreak High reboot in 2022. Then, in 2023, he made his film debut in Furiosa, joining Taylor-Joy, Hemsworth and a host of local talent in the latest instalment of the epic franchise.
His part may have been small – and he was covered in paint and prosthetics that rendered him unrecognisable, he admits – but tellingly, he was tapped for it by George Miller himself. “Furiosa was . . . I don’t even know how to describe it. Fucking mental. It was one of the craziest things ever,” he marvels, telling me how he waited a year after his first audition before receiving a surprise call asking him to meet with Miller and his co-writer, Nico Lathouris (who, incidentally, appeared in the first iterations of Heartbreak High in the ’90s). The trio – legendary filmmaker, screen veteran, up-and-coming star – chatted for more than an hour. “We didn’t even talk about the movie. We just talked about magic and my life – it was awesome,” Hodgkinson tells me. The shoot itself was gruelling, but inspiring. “It was so much fun,” he continues. “Being on set with those actors – to be able to share the screen with them and just be in the Mad Max universe, like on the trucks and wearing the costumes from the original film – it was such a trip.”
It also opened his eyes to the new kind of performer he can see himself becoming, citing Neil Patrick Harris (the performer and writer who is also a magician) as a multi-hyphenated star whose career he admires, as well as Donald Glover. And as we discovered on the set of his Esquire shoot with Coach, Hodgkinson’s sense of style certainly evokes the latter.
“Acting is definitely the long-term trajectory,” he says. “I want to do some cool action, or something really intense – physically intense – would be fun. Or I want to do a teenage, coming-of-age thing,” he continues – fitting, as he undergoes a metamorphosis of his own. But while our next encounter with Hodgkinson might be on the silver screen, one thing seems certain: the magic will never be lost.
Photography: Rob Tennent
Creative direction: Grant Pearce
Grooming: Kyye
Producer: Sofia Sallons
This story appears in the November/December 2024 issue of Esquire Australia, on sale now. Find out where to buy the issue here.
