The secret to youth on screen is not with de-aging technology, but with a digital replacement.

As movie audiences prepare for Gemini Man this Friday, many admired the youthful 25-year-old Will Smith in the trailers compared to his 51-year-old real life self.

The de-aging technology has been used in the movie business before quite impressively such as with Kurt Russel in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 or even with Jeff Bridges in TRON Legacy. It seems that de-aging technology is getting better to be the key to our fountain of youth.

During the press conference of Gemini Man over the weekend, Smith reminded the press that the technology used in the film is not de-aging. LRM Online was in attendance for this wondrous event.

He explained, “I’ve been doing a lot of interviews, and I don’t think people really understand the depth of what you guys have attempted and accomplished here. Junior is not de-aging. So it’s not my face, and then they smooth out my face to make it look younger. It’s a 100 percent digital human in the same way that the tiger in the Life of Pi. [It] is a 100 percent digital creation of a tiger. This is not me de-aged. It’s a 100 percent digital interpretation of me. It’s a digital character. It’s the first digital human.”

Will Smith is still acting as the younger Will Smith. With a complete digital recreation, an actor is still needed to convey the proper facial features and emotions.

“It’s actually a spectacular thing to be able to make people feel emotion in that way, capturing the youthful eyes. You can’t fake innocence. As a young actor, it’s easier to play older. But older, it’s impossible to play younger. Once you know some stuff, it’s your eyes. It’s in the cells once you know some stuff. Their job in creating of a digital human was to be able to sell that innocence and that youth. To be able to sell a digital human in that way, I think you guys did spectacular work,” he added.

Who are the guys he’s giving credit to?

Smith is praising Bill Westenhofer the visual effects supervisor and Guy Williams the visual effects supervisor of Weta Digital. The team deserves credit for the splendid spectacular work with the digital replacement.

To see the impressiveness of this technology, Gemini Man is featured in 120 frames per second. With the higher frame per second, an audience viewer will see the facial features up close to the realism one has never seen before.

Gemini Man is out this Friday in theaters nationwide.

Check out the rest of the press conference above.

Source: Paramount