High Wire Artist Philippe Petit Talks 'The Walk'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- He's the high wire artist who stunned the city with his famous walk between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974.
Now, Philippe Petit is the inspiration behind 'The Walk' -- a new movie about that death-defying stunt performed by Petit when he was 24 years old.
On Wednesday, CBS2's Alice Gainer spoke to Petit, now 66, about the film, which he said is best seen in IMAX 3D.
"They will feel how I felt there, Petit said. "And there was a moment of lonliness and I was absorbed in my own world -- half man, half bird -- and you feel that in the movies."
Another feeling he hopes to evoke: Joy and peace.
"I carry the beauty, the joy, the majesty of the towers," Petit said. "We all remember the disaster around the towers, the loss of human life. But if you go and see the movie, you will go back in time at a time when the towers were not linked with an amazingly awful event -- it was linked with an amazingly beautiful and joyful event."
That joyful event back in 1974 actually got him arrested, but the charges were eventually dropped.
With all the security measures in today's age, does Petit still think he could pull off a stunt like that now?
"Of course not," Petit said. "Except I continue to believe in the impossible."