VFX: De-aging tech

The quest for the fountain of youth is over, at least in Hollywood, where a new clutch of films features leading actors playing much younger versions of themselves.

In Ang Lee’s Gemini Man, Will Smith plays both 50-year old assassin Henry Brogan and 23-year old ‘Junior’, who is sent to kill him, while in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are digitally de-aged to portray younger versions of hitman Frank Sheeran and Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, respectively.

Disney first explored the idea of getting an actor to play against himself for Gemini Man almost two decades ago, but the…