De-aging in film

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Short description: De-aging is a visual effects technique used to make an actor look younger

In film and television, de-aging is a visual effects technique used to make an actor look younger, especially for flashback scenes. This is often accomplished via digitally editing the image or using computer-generated imagery (CGI) overlays or touch-ups. Some movies will even create de-aged digital actors from scratch or with a mixture of stand-ins and CGI.

List of film and television series

The following is a list of films and television series, in chronological order of release, that employ de-aging techniques:

Year Film Description
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand Actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, who play the mutants Professor X and Magneto respectively, are de-aged in a flashback scene in which the two work together to recruit a mutant girl (Jean Grey) as a student.[1][2]
2008 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Based on a short story in which the protagonist ages backwards, actor Brad Pitt, who plays Benjamin Button, is initially shown as elderly and is gradually de-aged to look progressively younger as numerous decades of the character's life go by.[3][4][1]
2009 X-Men Origins: Wolverine In this superhero film, Patrick Stewart, who plays mutant Professor X, is de-aged for a brief cameo appearance, as the film takes place earlier in the timeline than the previous films of the series in which Stewart participated.[5]
2009 Surrogates Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who controls a look-alike humanoid robot de-aged to appear in his mid 30s. The effect supervised by visual effects artist Mark Stetson relied on makeup, lighting, and digital effects.[6]
2010 Tron: Legacy A sequel to the 1982 film, set 28 years later, actor Jeff Bridges, who plays the protagonist Kevin Flynn in the original film, is de-aged to appear as Flynn's younger self in flashbacks and as the corrupt program Clu, a copy of Flynn himself, but decades younger.[1][7] Bruce Boxleitner, who plays the title character of Tron, also appears de-aged in flashbacks; his real world character of Alan Bradley, however, appears as the actor's natural age.
2013 Grudge Match A film about Robert De Niro (Billy "The Kid" McDonnen) and Sylvester Stallone (Henry "Razor" Sharp) as boxing rivals. In the beginning of the film, both actors are de-aged to show them fighting each other in their youth/prime. The rest of the film is set several decades later.
2013 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug This film is set decades before The Lord of the Rings film trilogy; actor Orlando Bloom reprises his role as the Elf character Legolas and is de-aged in his scenes, to reflect the fact that the film's Elves do not age.[1]
2014 Kingsman: The Secret Service Michael Caine was digitally de-aged for a scene set in 1975 featuring his character. This scene was ultimately cut from the film and has never been publicly released.[8]
2015 Ant-Man Michael Douglas and Martin Donovan, who play Hank Pym and Mitchell Carson, are both de-aged by 25 years, in a flashback scene set in 1989.[3][9][7][4]
2016 Pee-wee's Big Holiday In this comedy film, actor Paul Reubens reprises his role as Pee-wee Herman 28 years after the previous Pee-wee film. De-aging was applied to Reubens to make him appear the same age as he was in his last appearance. During filming, Reubens wore powder and tape on his face.[1][4]
2016 Fan In this Indian film, Shah Rukh Khan stars in a double role as film star Aryan Khanna and obsessive fan Gaurav Chandna, who looks like Aryan but is around twenty years younger. Khan was de-aged for the part of Gaurav with a combination of visual effects and prosthetics.
2016 Captain America: Civil War Robert Downey Jr., who plays Tony Stark, is de-aged in a digital recreation of a pivotal moment from the character's youth.[3]
2016 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Terence Stamp, who plays Abe Portman, is de-aged in the scenes in the loop of September 3, 1943, when he was in the army.
2017 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Kurt Russell, who plays Ego, is de-aged in a flashback scene set on Earth in 1980.[9]
2017 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales In this swashbuckler, Johnny Depp, who plays the main character Jack Sparrow, is de-aged for a flashback scene.[9]
2017 Kingsman: The Golden Circle Colin Firth was de-aged for a flashback scene, years before the events of the first film.
2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Laurence Fishburne who play Hank Pym, Janet van Dyne, and Bill Foster, respectively, are de-aged in flashback sequences.[10]
2018 Aquaman Temuera Morrison and Nicole Kidman are de-aged characters using CGI to portray Aquaman's parents, Thomas Curry and Atlanna, in opening scenes set during Aquaman's childhood. In addition, CGI was used to de-age Willem Dafoe for the scene where Nuidis Vulko trains the young Arthur Curry.[11]
2019 Captain Marvel Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg, who portray Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, are de-aged by 23 years for the entire film as it is set in 1995 (but filmed in 2018), whereas the previous films in which they had appeared in these roles had all been set in the present day.[12][13]
2019 Avengers: Endgame Multiple actors were digitally de-aged for different sequences. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner were digitally de-aged for their 2012 appearances that recreate scenes from The Avengers (2012) in which they respectively portray Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton.[14] Michael Douglas, John Slattery, and Stan Lee were also digitally de-aged for their 1970s appearances, in which they respectively portray Hank Pym, Howard Stark, and a car driver. The final cut of the film features 200 de-aging and aging shots.[15]
2019 It Chapter Two Horror sequel in which child actors Jaeden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Sophia Lillis, Wyatt Oleff, and Jackson Robert Scott were digitally de-aged to reprise their roles from It (2017) in flashback scenes, having visibly aged in the two-year interval.[16]
2019 Gemini Man In this science fiction film, actor Will Smith was de-aged to portray a younger clone of his character.[17]
2019 The Irishman In this epic crime film, actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci were digitally de-aged to portray younger versions of Frank Sheeran, Jimmy Hoffa, and Russell Bufalino respectively.[18]
2020 Bill & Ted Face the Music A comic science fiction film starring Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves as Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted "Theodore" Logan. They portray younger and older versions of Bill & Ted.
2021 Coming 2 America In this comedic sequel, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall were de-aged in a flashback.
2021 Candyman Tony Todd, reprising his role as the original Candyman, appears de-aged at the end of the film.
2021 Spider-Man: No Way Home Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina reprised their roles as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin and Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, respectively, and were both de-aged by 19 and 17 years respectively to match their younger appearances from 2002's Spider-Man and 2004's Spider-Man 2, respectively.[19][20]
2022 Scream Skeet Ulrich reprises his role of Billy Loomis from the original Scream (1996).
2022 Star Trek: Picard At the end of the second-season premiere, John de Lancie appears as Q did in Star Trek: The Next Generation for a few moments, before the character uses his powers to instantly age his physical appearance (reflecting de Lancie's current age) to match Patrick Stewart's, who is playing an elderly Jean-Luc Picard.
2022 The Adam Project In this science fiction film, actress Catherine Keener was de-aged to portray a younger version of her character.
2022 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Nicolas Cage portrays Nicky Cage, a figment of Cage's imagination, seen as a younger Wild at Heart-era version of himself.
2022 Acharya A de-aged Chiranjeevi appears as a younger version of his character in a flashback scene.
2022 Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers A de-aged Paula Abdul appears as herself in a flashback scene.
2022 Vikram A de-aged Kamal Haasan appears as himself in flashback scenes. The appearance for these scenes were referenced from the actor’s 1986 movie which incidentally had the same title
2022 Obi-Wan Kenobi In Part V, both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen were de-aged 20 to 17 years to match their appearances from 2002's Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and 2005's Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in flashback scenes.
2022 Orphan: First Kill Isabelle Fuhrman was de-aged from Fuhrman's age, 25 to 9 years old, around 13 years, to recapture Fuhrman's age in the first film Orphan (2009 film) for the prequel film. Noticeably, Fuhrman wasn't de-aged using CGI, like many other cases with de-aging, instead being de-aged with practical effects.
2022 Samaritan A de-aged Sylvester Stallone appears in a flashback scene.
2022 Cobra Kai In the shows 5th season, William Zabka was de-aged to match his appearance in 1984's The Karate Kid.
2022 Lifemark Kirk Cameron and Rebecca Rogers, who play Jimmy and Susan Colton; the adoptive parents of main character David Colton, were de-aged to make them look roughly 20 years younger to depict them at around the age that Jimmy and Susan would have been when they first adopted David in flashback scenes.[21]

Virtual actors

In some cases, a young version of a character is not played by the original actor but by a virtual actor, even though the actor being represented is usually still alive. This is usually accomplished with some combination of CGI, a body double, and a voice double or archival audio. Examples of actors who were replaced by virtual actors to portray their younger selves include:

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger as T-800 in Terminator Salvation (2009);[22] Roland Kickinger served as body double.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys (2015) in a scene which depicts the same T-800 from The Terminator; Brett Azar served as body double.[1][7]
  • Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016); Guy Henry served as both body and voice double.[23][24]
  • Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - Ingvild Deila served as body double; archive audio of Carrie Fisher's voice, taken from outtakes of her hologram scene in A New Hope, was used.[24] - and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd served as body double.[25]
  • Sean Young as Rachael in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) where a clone of the replicant is created by Niander Wallace and is offered to Rick Deckard in exchange for information. Loren Peta served as body double, while archival audio clips of Young were used for the voice.[26]
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Edward Furlong in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) - although all three appeared in their film as their current ages, virtual actors were used for their characters in flashback scenes. Brett Azar, Maddy Curley and Jude Collie served as the three characters' body doubles, respectively.
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in "Chapter 16: The Rescue", the sixteenth episode of The Mandalorian (2020); Max Lloyd Jones served as body double, while Hamill's younger voice was recreated using speech synthesis through machine learning.
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in "Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger", the sixth episode of The Book of Boba Fett (2021); Graham Hamilton was the on-set performer for the character. Skywalker was largely created through visual effects and synthesized speech based on reference images and recordings, respectively, of Hamill.
  • Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven / Jane Hopper ("El") in Stranger Things (2022); Martie Blair served as body double. Blair stood-in for the 9 year old version of Eleven, and her face was digitally replaced with Brown’s in post-production.[27]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Bradley-Tschirgi, Mat (December 1, 2016). "7 movie actors made impossibly young by CGI". GamesRadar. http://www.gamesradar.com/7-movie-actors-made-impossibly-young-by-cgi/. 
  2. ↑ Staff. "X-Men: Extreme Makeover". Fxguide. https://www.fxguide.com/featured/x-men_extreme_makeover/. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Giardina, Carolyn (May 10, 2016). "How 'Captain America: Civil War' Turned Robert Downey Jr. Back Into a Teen". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/how-captain-america-civil-war-892387. Retrieved May 30, 2017. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Merry, Stephanie (March 18, 2016). "Hollywood's secret beauty trick: The special effects facelift". The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/hollywoods-latest-beauty-trend-digitally-retouching-an-actors-face/2016/03/18/b4e4b85e-e61d-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html. 
  5. ↑ Rabin, Nathan (March 7, 2017). "How X-Men Origins: Wolverine Paved the Way for Logan by Being So Terrible". Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/03/logan-x-men-origins-wolverine-hugh-jackman-patrick-stewart-deadpool/. Retrieved December 18, 2018. "He’s supposed to be playing a younger version of Professor Xavier, but the C.G.I. employed is so jarringly off that he looks about as human as Jar Jar Binks.". 
  6. ↑ Patrick Kevin Day (October 1, 2009). "Movie magic shaves years off sci-fi star". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-oct-01-et-scene1-story.html. "digital-effects artists went in to the roughly 200 shots of Willis’ surrogate and removed the creases of the actor’s face frame by frame" 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Gonzales, Dave (July 4, 2015). "How Terminator: Genisys made a 'synthespian' of young Arnold Schwarzenegger". Geek.com. https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/how-terminator-genisys-made-a-synthespian-of-young-arnold-schwarzenegger-1626902/. 
  8. ↑ "'Kingsman' Deleted Scene Features a Young Michael Caine" (in en-US). 2015-02-24. https://movieweb.com/kingsman-secret-service-deleted-scene-michael-caine/. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Giardina, Carolyn (May 30, 2017). "Johnny Depp to Kurt Russell: How 'De-Aging' Stars Became Hollywood's VFX Trick Du Jour". The Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/pirates-5-guardians-2-vfx-technique-de-aging-1008206. Retrieved May 30, 2017. 
  10. ↑ Seymour, Mike (July 16, 2018). "A Bug's Wife: Ant-Man and the Wasp". Fxguide. https://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-bugs-wife-ant-man-and-the-wasp/. 
  11. ↑ Luxford, James (December 12, 2018). "Aquaman review: Jason Momoa's superhero is flawed but a lot of fun". Metro. https://metro.co.uk/2018/12/12/aquaman-review-jason-momoas-superhero-is-flawed-but-a-lot-of-fun-8232769//. 
  12. ↑ Mike Seymour (March 18, 2019). "Captain Marvel De-Aging by LolaVFX". fxGuide. https://www.fxguide.com/featured/captain-marvel-de-aging-by-lolavfx/. 
  13. ↑ Sciretta, Peter (July 6, 2018). "Kevin Feige Explains How They Planned 'Ant-Man and The Wasp' Alongside 'Infinity War,' the Disney Streaming Service and More [Interview"]. /Film. http://www.slashfilm.com/kevin-feige-interview-ant-man-and-the-wasp/. 
  14. ↑ Sonak, Divij (May 19, 2019). "Avengers: Endgame VFX Supervisor Talks Aging & De-Aging Effects". http://www.appocalypse.co/entertainment/avengers-endgame-vfx-breakdown-de-aging/. 
  15. ↑ Giardina, Carloyn (July 29, 2019). "'Avengers: Endgame' Contains 200 Aging and De-Aging VFX Shots". The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/avengers-endgame-200-aging-de-aging-vfx-shots-1227747. 
  16. ↑ Oller, Jacob (August 1, 2019). "It: Chapter Two features de-aged kids and a new scene direct from Stephen King". Syfy. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stephen-king-requested-completely-new-scene-it-chapter-2. 
  17. ↑ Desowitz, Bill (April 13, 2018). "Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman' and Ang Lee's 'Gemini Man' - IndieWire". IndieWire. https://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/martin-scorsese-ang-lee-digital-aging-the-irishman-gemini-man-1201952224/. 
  18. ↑ Robinson, Joanna (December 20, 2016). "Robert De Niro Is the Next Acting Legend to Get a Dramatic C.G.I. Facelift". Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/robert-de-niro-digital-facelift-the-irishman-martin-scorsese. Retrieved December 18, 2018. 
  19. ↑ "Alfred Molina Details Doc Ock's Return in 'Spider-Man: No Way Home': 'The Tentacles do All the Work' (EXCLUSIVE)". 16 April 2021. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/alfred-molina-spider-man-no-way-home-doc-ock-1234953527/. 
  20. ↑ Giardina, Carolyn (January 7, 2022). "How 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' VFX Team Brought Back Villains From the Multiverse". The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/spider-man-no-way-home-vfx-villains-reunion-1235069915/. 
  21. ↑ Foust, Michael (August 26, 2022). "4 Things You Should Know about Lifemark, the Kendricks' Uplifting Movie about Adoption". Crosswalk.com. https://www.crosswalk.com/culture/features/things-you-should-know-about-lifemark-the-kendricks-uplifting-movie-about-adoption.html. Retrieved September 3, 2022. 
  22. ↑ Sofge, Erik (2009-10-01). "How Old School Effects Brought Schwarzenegger's T-800 Back from 1983" (in en-US). https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/4318434. 
  23. ↑ Couch, Aaron (January 6, 2017). "'Rogue One'... Actor Hopes the Technology Won't Become 'Commonplace'". The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/rogue-one-grand-moff-tarkin-actor-hopes-tech-wont-become-commonplace-961555. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Agar, Chris (January 12, 2017). "Rogue One: How Princess Leia's 'Hope' Line was Created". Screen Rant. https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rogue-one-princess-leia-line-hope/. 
  25. ↑ Alter, Ethan (January 7, 2020). "Billie Lourd played Leia Organa and other visual effects secrets from 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'". Yahoo Entertainment. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-visual-effects-secrets-revealed-200000081.html. 
  26. ↑ Desowitz, Bill (October 19, 2017). "'Blade Runner 2049': How VFX Masters Replicated Sean Young as Rachael". IndieWire. https://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-vfx-replicant-sean-young-rachael-1201889072. 
  27. ↑ Vary, Adam B. (June 17, 2022). "'Stranger Things' Star Millie Bobby Brown on Young Eleven and Whether She Created the Upside Down". Variety. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stranger-things-millie-bobby-brown-eleven-upside-down-vecna-1235296870/. 




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