Digital De-Aging

Actors usually aren't the same age as the characters they play. That's just part of the craft. Maybe they're playing the part over a long period of time, maybe they're reprising the part in an earlier time period. But this creates a problem when audiences are expected to believe an actor who is portraying a character who is a good decade or two younger than the actor who plays them.

For most of film history, the go-to tool for de-aging an actor has been makeup, to varying degrees of success. But modern innovations in CGI have allowed filmmakers to digitally de-age their actors, by digitally erasing wrinkles, mapping footage from the actor's youth onto the modern face, or some combination of the two. It's often a subtle variation of Serkis Folk—expect set images from films employing this technique to have actors' faces covered in plastic dots. It may also be combined with Digital Head Swap, placing the de-aged face on another actor entirely, usually a stunt double who can do things the older actor is no longer capable of or has the body proportions the character is supposed to have while the older actor doesn't have them anymore. It has allowed to mostly avoid the problems of Fake Shemp in a number of modern works.

As you might expect, this is primarily done for de-aging an adult actor into a younger adult — de-aging an adult into a child takes significantly more work, and technology isn't quite there yet. However, de-aging a child into a younger child is not unheard of (It: Chapter Two de-aged its child actors two years to appear as they did in It (2017)). But it's unlikely that we'll see, for example, Drew Barrymore de-aged 45 years to match how she appeared as a child actress in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

When well-executed, it can be a nearly seamless visual effect. If done poorly, can be an example of the Unintentional Uncanny Valley.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• A Kia commercial aired during Super Bowl LII depicts Steven Tyler driving a car in reverse and regressing in age (back to his heyday in the 1970s) in this fashion.
• Similarly, a 2006 commercial for Citroen showed Sean Connery driving a Citroen C6 and gradually getting younger, and by the time he arrives at his destination, he looks the way he did during his 1960s heyday as James Bond.

Films — Live-Action

• American Pastoral uses this on Jennifer Connelly early in the film, making her appear as she did in The Rocketeer.
• Blade Runner 2049 used this for a scene where a recreation of Rachael interacts with the aged Deckard.
• Candyman (2021) utilizes this in its climax, with Tony Todd appearing exactly as he did in the first film.
• Coming 2 America: Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall, who already look fantastic for their respective ages here (58 and 63 at the time of filming), are de-aged by about 30 years for a flashback that expands upon the club scene from the first film.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button used CGI to make Brad Pitt look both older and younger, depending on the scene.
• DC Extended Universe: Aquaman opens with a flashback that features de-aged versions of Arthur's parents, played by Nicole Kidman and Temuera Morrison. Another flashback also does this with Willem Dafoe's Vulko.
• Gemini Man uses this to show an assassin played by Will Smith face off against a much younger clone of himself.
• This is used in Grudge Match to show early matches between Billy "The Kid" McDonnen (Robert De Niro) and Henry "Razor" Sharp (Sylvester Stallone).
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies both utilized this for Orlando Bloom's Legolas as this is set 60 years before the previous trilogy. However, since elves do not age, they only needed to de-age him by the 10 years that had passed in real life.
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny uses a variety of techniques collectively dubbed the ‘ILM Faceswap’ to de-age Harrison Ford as Indy for the opening flashback sequence set in 1944. The process reportedly took “a hundred VFX artists” and machine learning to achieve the finished result.
• The Irishman uses this for long stretches of its runtime, allowing the septuagenarian Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino to play characters in their 30s and 40s.
• It: Chapter Two uses this on flashbacks of the younger Losers from It.
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle features a flashback with a de-aged Colin Firth.
• Often used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Marvel's first foray into this treatment was actually with the reverse of this effect, as Captain America: The Winter Soldier opted to age up Hayley Atwell digitally when the crew weren't satisfied with how aging her up with makeup made her look during tests.
  • Ant-Man features a prologue where Hank Pym, as played by Michael Douglas, is de-aged to look as the actor appeared in Wall Street. Its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp (which illustrates this page with another Douglas example), uses the same technology on Michelle Pfeiffer's Janet Van Dyne, and Laurence Fishburne's Bill Foster.
  • Captain America: Civil War features a brief scene where Robert Downey Jr. is de-aged to play a teenage Tony Stark.
  • Kurt Russell is de-aged to appear as a younger version of Star-Lord's father in flashbacks for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
  • Captain Marvel is set in the 1990s and used CGI to give virtually seamless de-aged portrayals of Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg as Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, respectively.
  • The late Stan Lee was digitally de-aged for his final cameo in Avengers: Endgame, set in The '70s. In addition, the same approach that was taken with Peggy Carter in Captain America: The Winter Soldier was used to show an elderly Steve Rogers who had returned from an alternate timeline where he got to live a full life with Peggy, after he'd returned the Infinity Stones and Thor's hammer to their proper timelines.
  • The younger Hank Pym briefly returns in Avengers: Endgame, this time de-aged to look as Douglas appeared in 1970.
  • In WandaVision, Kathryn Hahn was digitally de-aged for her flashback scene in 1693.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home: Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina reprise their roles as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus from Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 respectively, with de-aging tech being used to make them appear as they did in their debut films. However, this trope is not used for Thomas Haden Church (Sandman) or Rhys Ifans (The Lizard) when their characters are Brought Down to Normal in the climax, as the movie instead used Stock Footage from Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man, respectively, for those scenes.
• Pee-wee's Big Holiday used a combination of this and make-up to make Paul Reubens appear as he did in the previous Pee-wee films.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales uses this for a flashback scene of a young Jack Sparrow.
• Scream (2022) uses this to show Skeet Ulrich as Billy Loomis, the same age he was in the first film, as the hallucinations of his daughter, Sam.
• Star Wars:
  • Rogue One, which was set just before A New Hope, has a brief appearance by Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, as she appeared in that film, with Ingvild Deila as stand-in.
  • The Rise of Skywalker features a brief flashback of a younger Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, with the characters appearing as they did around the time of Return of the Jedi. As Carrie Fisher had passed away by this point, her daughter Billie Lourd acted as her stand-in.
• Terminator:
  • The T-800 from Terminator Salvation was made by scanning a model made from a mold that was used all the way back for The Terminator then overlaying the face of bodybuilder Roland Kickinger with it, and not by digitally making Arnold's face younger.
  • Terminator Genisys used CGI to have the 1984 T-800 (played by bodybuilder Brett Azar with a de-aged Arnold Schwarzenegger's face overlayed on his body) face off against one played by Arnold in his 70s.
  • Terminator: Dark Fate brought Azar back to reprise his role as a T-800 circa 1998, with Maddy Curley as a young Sarah Connor and Jude Collie as a young John, also via Digital Head Swap.
• In TRON: Legacy, CGI was used to make Jeff Bridges look as he appeared 28 years prior. While these scenes are few in number (some of which also have a de-aged Bruce Boxleitner as Tron), CLU keeps this very appearance while Kevin Flynn appears as an older man.
• In Waterworld, Kevin Costner forced the VFX crew to digitally hide his receding hairline.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • In X-Men: The Last Stand, CGI was used to de-age Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen for a flashback in which they first meet Jean Grey.
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine also used this for Patrick Stewart's cameo at the end of the movie.

Live-Action TV

• CSI: NY: During "Blacklist", Gary Sinise plays his character, Mac Taylor, in a 15-20 year flashback to him in Chicago right before getting out of the Marines and joining the NYPD. CGI and lighting were used, along with sepia tones.
• Jimmy Kimmel Live!: During the show's 20th anniversary special in 2023, Jimmy Kimmel interacted with a digitally-recreated incarnation of himself from 2003.
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • After Star Trek: Nemesis, Brent Spiner was uninterested in playing Data onscreen, believing he'd grown too old to play an ageless android, only appearing as a voice in the Star Trek: Enterprise finale "These Are The Voyages...". Thanks to advancements in digital deaging, he agreed to play Data again, appearing in Picard's dreams in season 1.
  • Season 2 does this when the immortal Q appears looking exactly like he did in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then he alters his appearance to mock how much older Picard has become, looking like John de Lancie does now. He then maintains the old appearance throughout the rest of the season.
  • Season 3 features various flashbacks which, in addition to practical effects like makeup and wigs/hair dye, lightly de-ages the various TNG characters anywhere from 1-2 decades, depending on when the flashback in question takes place.
• Star Wars:
  • The Mandalorian: Season 2 ends with Luke Skywalker coming to the rescue of Mando, Grogu & co. Mark Hamill's de-aged face was put on the body of stand-in Max Lloyd-Jones. The de-aged character returned in The Book of Boba Fett, looking far more accurate this time.
    • The last episode of Season 3 features Force-sensitive clones of Moff Gideon. All of them sport Giancarlo Esposito's younger face. This wasn't the first time that the actor had his face de-aged, however: similar trick was done for one episode of non-linear Netflix show Kaleidoscope.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi Part V features flashbacks of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker set just before Attack of the Clones. While the crew did make attempts to digitally de-age Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, the results were...not great. (For one, Anakin still has noticeable facial wrinkles, making him look much older than nineteen, his age at the time.)
  • Ahsoka: Hayden is de-aged again, this time looking much more like he did in the prequel trilogy.
• Twin Peaks: the Return features a scene where Agent Cooper saves Laura Palmer, with Sheryl Lee made youthful through a combination of CGI and lighting.
• Season 1 of Westworld used CGI in flashbacks to show a youthful version of the character played by Anthony Hopkins. It's helped along by only appearing for a few seconds of screen time, and the character not speaking.
• BMF bizarrely has Eminem, then aged 49, cameo as White Boy Rick, with digital deaging to make him look like a seventeen year old.

Music

• In 2021, ABBA reunited to record a new album, Voyage. They digitally recreated themselves as they looked in the late 1970s for their music videos. Notably, Björn Ulvaes and Benny Andersson, both of whom were bearded at this point, had to shave their beards in order to get digitally scanned. It was especially tough for Benny, as he'd been bearded since the time ABBA had originally started.
• The music video for Billy Joel's 2024 single "Turn The Lights Back On" depicts Joel at different points in his career from his start in the 1970s to the 2020s.

Video Games

• Ellie's face in The Last of Us is based off Ashley Johnson, her voice actress, deaged to look like a teen.
• For the DLC characters Terminator, RoboCop and Rambo, Mortal Kombat 11 features the likenesses of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Weller and Sylvester Stallone de-aged to when they first portrayed their respective characters.
  • Mortal Kombat 1 also does this for Jean-Claude Van Damme as a Premium Skin for Johnny Cage, reverting his age to around the time that Bloodsport was filmed.

---