J. Daniel Atlas

"Come in close. Closer. Because the more you think you see, the easier it'll be to fool you. Because what is seeing? You're looking, but what you're really doing is filtering. Interpreting. Searching for meaning. My job? To take that most precious of gifts you give me: your attention, and use it against you."

- Atlas at the beginning of the extended movie.

J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas is the main protagonist in the movie, Now You See Me.

He's portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg.

Background
J. Danny Atlas is a very well-known street magician and illusionist. He performs for people and originally had an assistant, Henley Reeves who he had a love interest with, but they stopped working together, because Henley could not fit into a trapdoor that another one of Atlas' assistants, Rebecca, could fit through.

Now you see me

In the opening sequence, Atlas flips through a deck of cards and tells his spectator to see one card as he flipped through. He then threw the cards into the air and the card she saw appeared on the side of a towe, the 7 diamond. The spectator then followed him home and they were about to go at it when Daniel found a tarot card portraying the lover and on the back instructions to go to east Evan's st NY.

The Next day he reunited with Henley who became a stage magician herself and got a card too, together they meet Merritt McKinney a once famous menatist and Jack Wilder a slide of hand street pocket picker. In the room 6b the four find blueprints and instructions for a show.

One year later, Atlas and the others joined together to put on a magic show in Las Vegas as "The Four Horsemen" at the MGM Grand casino sponsored by Arthur Tresslar a British insurance man where the audience is rewarded with money, taken from a bank in Paris Called Credit Republican de Paris. The FBI and Interpol are wondering how the magicians stole 3.2 million Euros from a bank vault in Paris in three seconds, so they assign agent Dylan Rhoads to handle the investigation. During interrogation he got no answers from either the magicians ( Daniel switched the handcuffs and bugged Dylan's phone) or the French witness Entient how was hypnotize to be the field harmonic every time someone said bull shit.

On their way to New Orleans on Arthur's jet for there second act Daniel tried to prove he can mind read Arthur by guessing the names of his fist pet and moteral uncle ( both wrong ). In New Orleans Daniel preformed a series of tricks with Henley involving bubbles and a disappearing rabbit, for the final act the Horsemen stole all of Arthur's money using the information he himself provided and gave it back to the audience who were in fact all customers of his insurance company and were cheated by him.

They then escaped again to NY to prepare for the final act when the bug was discovered and the firewalls were being hacked. After the death of Jack Wilder Daniel Merritt and Henley set out to finish their act at Five Pointz involving a safe from a company called Elkhorn. Using holograms and light the three jumped off the roof and resolved into flows of money, later they reunited with Jack who was indeed alive at Central Park and finally meet their employer who was non panther than Dylan Rhoads aka Dylan Shrike the son of magician Lionel Shrike.

Personality
Atlas is a high control freak who likes to be the center of attention. His control issues make him put tracking bracelets on his stage crew and become cocky around the people around him also makes him rude to everyone.