Suffering from aphasia, a language disorder that prevents him from pursuing his career, Bruce Willis has become the first movie star to sell his rights to allow the creation of a “digital double” of his person. He thus authorized the American company Deepcake, a specialist in the process, to use his face. It remains to be seen how much money Bruce Willis continues to receive for the use of his features.
Based on so-called deepfake technology, the process has, for example, allowed the use of the actor’s face in an advertisement for a Russian telephone operator. He never set foot on set, however, and his face was digitally transplanted onto another performer. “I liked the precision of my charactersaid Bruce Willis. It’s a mini movie in my usual genre of action comedy. For me, it’s a great opportunity to go back in time. With the advent of modern technology, even when I was on another continent, I was able to communicate, work and participate in filming. It’s a completely new and interesting experience, and I thank our whole team”.
Bruce Willis could therefore soon find himself in larger productions. The cinema has already used these technologies to give a second life to actors or to make them appear on the screen after their death. Recently, a video featuring Tom Cruise had created amazement as the deepfake was so realistic. If the face is obviously the most difficult to reproduce faithfully, many vocal deepfakes are also used in cinema and elsewhere. Recently, the interpreter of Darth Vader entrusted archives containing his voice to Disney so that the company continues to use it in its productions.