Lionel Shrike

Lionel Shrike is a character in Now You See Me. He is portrayed by Elias Koteas in Now You See Me and Richard Laing in ''Now You See Me 2. ''

Background
He once asked a man to sign a card for a trick. Lionel then places the signed card inside a hollowed-out part of a tree. The tree grows around the card. Twenty years later, Lionel asks the same man to sign a card. Lionel then saws the old tree in half to reveal the card from twenty years ago.

He was good friends with Thaddeus Bradley, but they both pretended to be rivals in public.

In 1984, he tried to do a stunt in which he would be locked in a safe. The safe would be dropped into the East River, and he planned to escape in five minutes. Shrike hands his son, Dylan, a watch and tells him to count the seconds until he returned. However, when the safe reaches the bottom of the river, it warps due to it being made from cheap metal, leading to his death. His body was never found.

Lionel's death had a profound effect on his son Dylan, who was traumatized by the incident. Dylan would spend the next thirty years practicing his magic skills, and eventually, he would bring the Four Horsemen together in a revenge plot against Thaddeus Bradley (for challenging his father to do the stunt) and Tressler Insurance (for refusing to pay the due amount after his death).

Quotes

 * A magician's greatest power lies forever shrouded in his empty fist, and in the very idea that he can convince the world that he is, in fact, carrying with him a secret.