Now You See Me 2 stars have mixed emotions mastering magic

Magic will never be quite so magical for the stars of new movie Now You See Me 2 after the illusionists hired to train them revealed their secrets.

Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, and Woody Harrelson return for the sequel and they're joined by boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe and Lizzy Caplan, who admits the world of magic has been ruined for her.

"I now know a handful of tricks, but after working with the three magicians on set, you realise there really is no such thing as magic - it's purely skill," she tells Parade magazine, "and you marvel at the skill of it all, but you do lose the illusion that there's an actual magical element."

But Jesse is glad he now understands how his favourite tricks are mastered, because he has always hated being kept in the dark at magic shows.

"I have two competing feelings while I'm watching magic," he says. "One is that it's enthralling and totally entertaining. The other is that it's frustrating because my curiosity is killing me. But when somebody is performing a trick for me, I love being 'lied' to. It's kind of a thrilling, almost childlike feeling of wonder."

And Franco is just glad he a few tricks up his sleeve for parties, adding, "The best trick I learned was how to flip a card behind my back and catch it in my mouth. I practised this trick for more hours than I'd care to admit.

"It was very important to us that the tricks were things that real magicians could do... and there are plenty of magic sequences where we don't rely on special effects at all."

The stars of the movie have become suck good amateur illusionists Las Vegas regular Penn Jillette is impressed with their talents, particularly those of Eisenberg's.

"His Daniel Atlas character says in the movies that a magician has to be the smartest person in the room," Penn says. "I earn my living as a professional magician, but I wasn't sure I was even the smartest person at our table. Jesse as Daniel Atlas in the Now You See Me movies is my kind of magician: a brilliant, thoughtful actor playing the part of a magician, who's really just a smart guy doing tricks."