If you’ve ever watched a movie where an actor looks drastically older or younger, you may have wondered how this is possible.
Do they have a younger sibling standing in for them? Do they have a face cream we can borrow? What kind of sorcery is this??
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Truth is, it’s simply the wonders of makeup and visual effects. Here are 10+ times movies and TV magically altered someone’s age.
1. Anthony Hopkins in *Westworld*
There were a lot of secrets in the hit HBO show, but most impressive was how they de-aged Anthony Hopkins into a much younger version of himself.
This was done by the visual-effects studio Important Looking Pirates, in Sweden.
They did so by making a photorealistic CG version of Hopkins and then placing his face on a body stand-in.
Since Hopkins has been acting for decades, the studio had to make sure he looked just like how people remember him.
I’d say, mission accomplished.
2. Robert Downey Jr. in *Captain America: Civil War*
The de-aging of RDJ into a college version of himself has always been praised.
“The best examples of de-aging cgi that you’ll find. Especially RDJ in civil war that’s probably the best de-aging you’ll ever see.” – Redditor Vully5789
3. Robert De Niro in *The Irishmen*
Since the Oscar-nominated film spans decades, from 1949 to 2000, a lot of makeup was required to transform most of the actors’ ages, including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci.
“We had to age him in a couple of stages,” makeup artist Carla White revealed about De Niro.
For the “the younger old age,” they “covered up the bags under his eyes with two prosthetic pieces. Then the older of the two ages had a very thin wig.”
This went along with “paintings, body and texture increasing and highlighting and shadowing what he already had.”
For the de-aging process, that was part makeup, part visual effects.
After getting De Niro de-aged 20 years via makeup, visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman, did the rest.
4. Michael Douglas in *Ant-Man*
Trent Claus, a visual cosmetics specialist at Lola VFX, explained to Vulture how his company accomplished de-aging feat Douglas.
They began by studying the actor’s younger face in previous movies, such as 1987’s Wall Street .
From there, they gave him a “digital facelift.
This included adding fat to Douglas’ cheeks, making his ears smaller, and adding little tweaks like shine to his face in order to hide the blood vessels on his nose.
5. Will Smith in *Gemini Man*
This movie was the first of its kind: the same actor playing two versions of himself that exist at the same time.
This was made possible with digital effects, which is unlike other films where the characters are simply de-aged.
6. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2*
A lot went into aging these Harry Potter characters.
This included makeup and prosthetics, tiny details such as removing Harry’s floppy hair from his face to make him look more mature, and then digital effects to tweak the rest.
7. Max von Sydow in *The Exorcist*
“The ‘older’ priest in the exorcist. Didn’t know for the longest time it was a fairly young dude in make up.” – Redditor YOUNGaz
Get this: the aging looked so real in the film that it actually hurt his career.
8. Brad Pitt in *The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*
Curious as to how Brad Pitt aged in reverse in the film?
Well, for the first 52 minutes of the film, there is no live Brad Pitt. Instead, they used a maquette and did a head replacement with the actor.
That’s not all.
Other aging and de-aging processes that took place included “creating software systems for hair, eyes, skin, teeth, and all elements that make up Benjamin” and “compositing all of Benjamin’s elements to integrate animation, lighting, and create the final shot.”
9. Johnny Depp in *Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales*
Visual effects artist, Gary Brozenich, explained the process of de-aging Depp to Inverse .
“Johnny would do the performance, and then we would have the body double watch Johnny to the smallest detail.”
“What that gave us, the VFX team, was a target for what younger skin looks like: how it reacts, how, sadly, young flesh moves differently to older flesh.”
He continued:
“It gave us raw material. And on top of that [we would] take parts of the other.”
10. Christian Bale in *Vice*
In addition to his weight gain, Bale had to spend four to eight hours a day in the makeup chair on the Vice set in order to look like the 77-year-old Cheney.
This meant having his scalp shaved and eyebrows bleached for the wigs and prosthetics.
This was so the items would have a better canvas on his head.
“It was helpful to (have) a bullish neck,” Bale said. “They added a number of inches (of prosthetic) around my neck.”
11. Samuel L. Jackson in *Captain Marvel*
Ant-Man wasn’t the only Marvel film that had amazing de-aging.
“It’s pretty fantastic in Captain Marvel. After his first few scenes I kinda forgot he doesn’t actually look like that now lol.” – Redditor EricSandt
12. Sally Field in *Forrest Gump*
The actress was 10 years older than Tom Hanks when she played his mother in the film.
You can thank a gray wig and makeup for making her look older.
