Meet Philippe Petit, the real World Trade Center wire walker
The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, tells the story of Philippe Petit. Shad checks in with the real wire walker.
This interview originally aired on October 8, 2015.
Wire walker Philippe Petit is real-life inspiration for The Walk, a new Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie that dramatizes his illegal walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.
Petit joins Shad to talk about his surprisingly serene take on a terrifying act, why he embraces "poetic arrogance", and how he became the "happiest half-man, half-bird in the world."
"I am never afraid on the wire," he tells Shad.
WEB EXTRA | Watch the trailer for The Walk as well as Petit's TED talk about his soaring ambitions below.