LOS ANGELES – American actor Tom Hanks has praised the “astonishing” use of artificial intelligence (AI) to age himself in “real time” on the set of his new movie. Hollywood.

In American theaters on November 1, Hanks and American actress Robin Wright play a couple trying to keep their family together through births, marriages, divorces and deaths over decades and even generations.

The new film, directed by American filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, marks the first appearance of 68-year-old Hanks and 58-year-old Wright on the big screen since the Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump (1994), also directed by Zemeckis.

Hanks portrays his character in Here from an idealistic teenager through various stages of youth and middle age to a frail old man.

But instead of relying solely on makeup, the filmmakers collaborated with AI studio Metaphysic on a tool called Metaphysic Live to rejuvenate and “age” actors.

The technology worked so quickly that Hanks was able to instantly watch his “deepfake” performance after each scene.

“The amazing thing about this is that it happens in real time,” Hanks said. “We didn’t have to wait eight months of post-production. There were two monitors on set. One was the real feed from the lens, the other, just a nanosecond slower, was our “deepfake”. “So we could see ourselves in real time, right then and there.”

The rapidly increasing use of artificial intelligence in films, including Here, has raised major concerns in Hollywood. Players went on strike in 2023 among other things, the threat they believe technology poses to their business and industry.

Hanks acknowledged those fears during a panel discussion with Zemeckis at last weekend’s AFI Fest in Hollywood, saying “a lot of people” were worried about how it would be used.

“They took eight million photos of us from the internet. “They scoured the internet looking for photos of us in every era we were in, every event we shot, every movie we had, every family photo that could exist anywhere,” Hanks said. “And they put it in a box; what is it, ‘deepfake technology,’ whatever you want to call it.”

‘Cinematic’