On stage, Cosentino the magician, illusionist and escape artist is the ultimate showman.
Mysterious and almost other-worldly, he makes audiences gasp as he performs seemingly inexplicable sleights of hand.
Off the stage, the man behind the magic is quietly spoken, polite, humble and kind.
He is an open book who is generous with his time and sincere in his desire to share his life experiences, good and bad, to help others.
His latest show is a brand-new production called TRICKED - An Evening of Wonder, a multimillion-dollar theatrical phenomenon where magic, illusion and breathtaking spectacle collide in one unforgettable experience.
"TRICKED is the most ambitious live show I've ever created," says Cosentino.
"It blurs the line between reality and fantasy. We're not just performing old-school tricks, we're bending minds, defying logic and transporting audiences into another dimension. It's immersive, visually spellbinding, full of surprises, and it's got a lot of audience interaction and participation.
"I've had audience participation in the past but not at this level. More than 50 per cent of the show involves bringing people up on stage, and that can go pretty pear-shaped, pretty quickly [laughs]."
Cosentino's last production, Decennium, was a "best of" his award-winning career. With TRICKED he had to "start from scratch".
"It was a case of 'What can I do to make everything more baffling and more tricky?' So I went in the direction of grand illusions, people disappearing and levitating, teleporting, all those really speccy things," he says.
"All of the material is brand new. There are four different pieces in the show that rely on pretty heavy sleight of hand, and we use multiple camera angles to project it onto multiple screens.
"I make sure my sleeves are always rolled up. There's nowhere to hide. It's pretty powerful stuff.
"The person sitting opposite me is usually bamboozled. Sometimes they say, 'I always thought that if I sat up close I'd be able to figure it out, but it's even more amazing up close'."
Cosentino's productions rely on a formula he calls "the four pillars": grand illusions, close-up magic, death-defying escapes, and humour.
There are two types of audience members," he says.
"There are the people who like to sit back and relax and watch the show in disbelief, and the people who try to figure it all out.
"It's a really interesting game that the audience and the magician play; it's a game of cat and mouse."
Cosentino is a best-selling author, a multiple Merlin Award winner and, like David Copperfield, Criss Angel and Penn Teller before him, has been named International Magician of the Year and International Escape Artist of the Year.
He is the first Australian magician to have nine prime-time television specials broadcast globally, was the runner-up on season five of Australia's Got Talent, won season 13 of Dancing With The Stars Australia, and was an "intruder" on season six of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, winning over audiences with his honesty and humour.
"I kept saying no when they asked me to be on the show, and then my family said 'Look, just go on the show and be you. Everyone thinks of you as serious and dramatic and extreme - which I am - but they don't know who you really are'," Cosentino told Weekender in 2022.
"Other people were, like, 'Don't do it. There's nowhere to hide'. The thing is, I had nothing to hide. So I went on the show and it was a huge success for me, and really changed the perception of how people see me."
He taught himself how to film and edit during COVID-19 lockdowns and uses that footage in his Cosentino Magic Kits, "breaking each trick down" step by step.
His greatest trick, he reckons, is learning to read at the age of 12 and going on to become an author. His mother, a school principal, encouraged him to find joy in reading by introducing him to books about magic tricks.
He now writes his own children's books in the hope of encouraging reluctant readers to give it a go. The Mysterious World of Cosentino series follows Cosentino and his magical friends as they attempt to save Magic-Land from an evil king.
"The books and the magic kits encourage the kids to use their imaginations, to be creative. I think that's so important. It gets them off their devices," he says.
Cosentino is also an in-demand interior design photographer who uses old-school film and develops the photos himself.
"I've been taking interior shots for different designers and commercial building companies. It's not a side job or anything, it's more for fun," he says.
"It all started because my brother's a builder and he needed someone to take shots of the work they'd done. It's a little creative outlet for me which very few people know about."
