Actors Who Needed Digital Intervention For Their Roles
Whether they were aged down decades or given a virtual haircut, these are some more actors who underwent elaborate digital makeovers for their parts.
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00:00Whether they were aged down decades or given a virtual haircut,
00:04these are some more actors who underwent elaborate digital makeovers for their parts.
00:09Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman has received her fair share of CGI assistance. The Israeli-born actor
00:15isn't capable of deflecting bullets or chucking tanks in real life, so she needs a little help
00:20to make her character a bit more believable. However, the biggest job for the effects
00:25department was to hide the miracle of life during the reshoots for Patty Jenkins' first
00:30Wonder Woman film. Gadot revealed to Entertainment Weekly that she was five months pregnant with her
00:35daughter, Maya, when she was required to head back to the set for additional filming. Due to
00:39her growing baby bump, the filmmakers had to find a way to work around it since a pregnancy
00:44wasn't a part of the storyline. So, the costume designers cut a gap in her costume,
00:49around the belly area, and placed a green cloth there that allowed the effects team
00:53to manipulate the visuals at a later stage. Speaking about the experience, Gadot said,
00:59"'On close-up, I looked very much like Wonder Woman. On wide shots,
01:02I looked very funny, like Wonder Woman pregnant with Kermit the Frog.'"
01:06"'They cut a big triangle and painted green, and I came to work, me and Maya,
01:12we came to work together.'"
01:15Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is an ambitious film,
01:18not only because it has to keep the audience's attention for almost four hours,
01:23but also because it spans five decades during its runtime. While an easier approach might have
01:28been to cast new actors for each specific era of the story, Scorsese wanted his main
01:33cast to be present throughout. Senior actor and Irishman star Robert De Niro also made
01:38it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to wear green dots or motion-capture suits
01:43to make it happen, according to the Los Angeles Times.
01:47"'I was just doing a job to make some extra money.'"
01:51Industrial light and magic took on the challenge of creating new technology to tell the epic story.
01:56The team created a new camera rig for Scorsese to use on set, which would pick up the kind of
02:01data that would be transmitted through the tracking dots normally. Then, they would edit
02:05the shots in granular detail, including the frown and smile lines of characters such as De Niro's
02:11Frank Sheeran. However, practical effects played a major part as well. Wigs and prosthetics were
02:16utilized to add to the authenticity.
02:19The Star Wars timeline is a lot like flipping through family photo albums.
02:23Not everything is in sequential order. The stories jump around from era to era as filmmakers and
02:29showrunners cherry-pick moments in fictional history in which they will set their tales.
02:34This creates a little problem. Actors are human, and humans age. No matter how good the sunscreen
02:40and skincare products they use are, an actor who was 25 three decades ago will look significantly
02:46older in modern times. Solo, a Star Wars story, solved this challenge by casting a younger actor,
02:53Alden Ehrenreich, as Han Solo. But the Mandalorian simply had to have Mark Hamill return as Luke
02:59Skywalker.
03:00We knew we wanted Mark Hamill front and center,
03:02because you can't bring back Luke Skywalker without Mark Hamill."
03:06In an interview with IndieWire, Industrial Light and Magic VFX supervisor Richard Bluff
03:11explained how the team approached de-aging Hamill while trying to capture the same look
03:16as from Return of the Jedi. Hamill appeared on set in costume and performed the required actions.
03:22But there was a younger body double, Max Lloyd-Jones, who was responsible for many
03:27of the sequences as well. Essentially, the VFX crew deep-faked Hamill's face onto Lloyd-Jones
03:33for the close-up scenes.
03:35Tobey Maguire knows all about the power of CGI, having starred in the original Spider-Man trilogy.
03:41However, it isn't his time as Spidey that gives him a spot on this list.
03:45It's his appearance as the nameless hitchhiker in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
03:51Now, why would the hitchhiker of all people in this film require any type of digital
03:56assistance, some may ask? Well, the answer involves something green, but not the kind
04:01that's placed on actors and backgrounds for VFX. No, the reason for this special effect
04:06was cold, hard cash. According to Geek, Maguire shaved off all his hair so the production could
04:12get the unique aesthetic for his character, and ended up being called back for reshoots
04:17a while later. Reportedly, Maguire had a special clause in his contract that stated he would
04:22be paid an extra $15,000 if he needed to shave his head again. The filmmakers decided to
04:28save some cash, so they stuck a bald cap on him and tried to digitally match the hair
04:33with the previous footage. Most of us have to pay to get our hair cut, but Maguire was
04:37lucky enough to have it the other way around.
04:40Marvel Studios is no stranger to de-aging actors, but making Samuel L. Jackson's Nick
04:45Fury look 25 years younger was a daunting task. Previously, a digitally edited character
04:51would appear for no more than a few shots, but Fury was a fundamental part of the storyline,
04:56who appeared in a good number of scenes. No corners could be cut. Fortunately, there was
05:02no need for new technologies or inventions, as Lola Visual Effects felt comfortable enough
05:07with the task at hand. Marvel VFX supervisor Christopher Townsend explained to The Wrap
05:12that the team looked at films that Jackson starred in in the 90s, like Jurassic Park,
05:17to build their digital version of the younger Fury.
05:20"...but I do know that they referenced some films that I did from that time. So when I
05:25look at it, I see, you know, Danny Roman's face from The Negotiator."
05:29Jackson's graceful aging provided an additional challenge to the team.
05:33Lola VFX supervisor Trent Claus elaborated,
05:36"...if you're working with someone like Sam, who really doesn't have a whole lot of wrinkles,
05:41you really have to rely on physiological changes. Changes in structure of musculature,
05:46textures of skin, the way the weight hangs on your neck and your jaw,
05:49things over time like that we've studied for so many years now."
05:53Dwayne the Rock Johnson may look like a character from Street Fighter in the flesh,
05:58but he puts a lot of hard work into looking good on the screen and being the most electrifying
06:02man in Hollywood. However, there is a moment in the comedy Central Intelligence
06:07where Johnson plays a teenage version of his character dancing in the nude,
06:11and not looking quite as shredded as he is in the real world.
06:15"...No, we're not gonna go. This man insulted you,
06:17and we're not gonna leave until he apologizes."
06:19"...It's okay."
06:20"...Hey, we got a problem here?"
06:22"...No, no."
06:23The team behind this transformation was the celebrated WetaFX. The New Zealand-based
06:28special effects company used some smart techniques to make the scene look as authentic
06:32as possible and not too jarring to the viewer. According to Wired, Weta got popular Vine
06:37personality Sioni Kalipe to dance, while they captured his performance and specific gestures.
06:43Then they brought in Johnson and Kalipe to do detailed facial scans, with which they were
06:48able to match their expressions and combine multiple performances into a single character.
06:58"...How you doing?"
07:02Since El Camino, a Breaking Bad movie, is a sequel to Breaking Bad that follows Jesse Pinkman,
07:07not many people expected Bryan Cranston's Walter White to appear,
07:11considering the fate of his character at the end of the series. However, the film does a good job
07:16of exploring the future and past, so Walter indeed makes an appearance by sitting down with Jesse
07:22in a diner scene. While Cranston never had a problem shaving his head to play Walter on the
07:26series, he did have a problem when El Camino came around. He was performing on Broadway and
07:32couldn't take a razor to his hair. The solution seemed easy enough — a bald cap. Unfortunately,
07:38it didn't look as convincing to the filmmakers as they had hoped for. In the end, the digital
07:43effects team had to take the digital brush to Walter's head to fix any issues with the bald cap,
07:48per The Hollywood Reporter. For such a simple and unassuming scene,
07:52most of it had to be recreated with visual effects.