THE IDEA FOR GEMINI MAN H A S
been kicking around for more than
20 years: Henry, a middle-aged
assassin, battles his younger clone,
Junior, who’s been sent to kill him.
But technology had to catch up
to finally bring the tale to the bigscreen, with Will Smith, 51, playing
both characters in the Ang Lee-
directed thriller.
Smith is just the latest star to go
back in time, after Samuel L. Jack-
son and Kurt Russell were recently
digitally de-aged for Captain Marveland Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,
respectively. But the Gemini Man
team is quick to distance their film
from any others.
“This is set to be the holy grail
of visual effects—if we can do this,”
says Lee. “Scientifically, you know
it can be done, but how we per-
ceive it, that’s the leap of faith.”
Lee worked with New Zealand-
based Weta Digital to carry out his
vision. “We took Will Smith and
put in a full CGI creature, like the
dinosaurs in Jurassic Park,” says
Weta vis ual-effects supervisor Guy
Williams (Avatar). To build this,
Lee & Co. combed through the
actor’s life, with Bad Boys and Six
Degrees of Separation serving
as some of the best references.
Getting it right is crucial, says
visual-effects supervisor Bill Wes-
tenhofer (Wonder Woman), who
also worked on the film: “If some-
thing looks pretty close to real but
isn’t quite there, it’s actually more
disturbing.” As Henry, Smith acted
opposite a stand-in before later
going into motion capture to play
Junior against the video of Henry.
The process was a bit simpler for
Netflix’s Martin Scorsese-directed
The Irishman (Nov. 1). Robert
De Niro and Al Pacino were able to
portray their characters over a
40-year period thanks to a new
camera and software system that
translated their performances
into 3-D computer-generated ver-
sions of their younger selves.
But it wasn’t without its challenges.
“Why I’m concerned,” Scorsese
has said, “is that we’re so used to
watching them as the older faces.”
Meanwhile, Smith has joked that
he will now let himself go because he
can just call in Junior for future
movies. But what does this mean
for movies moving forward? “I think
there’s a limit,” says USC film
professor Michael Fink. “There’s a
point at which you’re essentially
creating an animated character,
and filmmakers need to think maybe
that’s where they should stop.”
But we probably shouldn’t worry
about a slippery slope just yet—for
the most Hollywood reason of all:
money. As Lee recently said: “Junior
is twice as expensive as Will Smith.”For once, the best face-lifts in the biz aren’t done in a doctor’s
office: In GEMINI MAN (Oct. 11) and the upcoming The Irishman,
A-listers like Will Smith and Robert De Niro play their younger
selves through digital manipulation. BY DEREK LAWRENCEYo u n g e rHOW DID THEY DO THAT?
Getting
All the Time