Philippe Petit, just shy of his 60th birthday, still has a twinkle in his eye, still trains three hours a day, and — remarkably — is still wire-walking. Unlike every other interviewer who's met Petit, I did not ask him if he was scared when he did the WTC walk, on the assumption that a scared person wouldn't do it in the first place. I did, however, plan to ask Petit to assess his sanity; he beat me to it, though, boldly declaring: "I am a madman."
OK, so it's a week, a month, maybe a year after the WTC walk; was there a point where you thought, "Oh God. What do I do next?"
No, no. If I were a different man, someone who wanted to run and scream "I did it! I'm the greatest! I want to make money, be famous!" then after the WTC I would have killed myself because there was nothing bigger! But I am the opposite of this person. I don't care about the greatest, the biggest; I don't care about money. What interests me is to try and do something beautiful. I have done giant things, but it is wrong to think I collect "gigantism." I've done some very small performances that to me are the equal of this in artistic quality.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.