Will Smith fights Will Smith tonight at France 2

In The Man of the Twins, directed by Ang Lee, which aired Sunday night on France 2, Will Smith plays Henry Borgan, a fifty-year-old professional assassin who suddenly finds himself in danger, to put it mildly, atypical: a 23-year-old agent using identical techniques of his own and who No one else but his own clone.

To revive the second Will Smith at the age of 30, director Eng Lee and his team used revolutionary techniques. Contrary to what is usually done, for example, in Marvel plays, which often use actors to give second youths, Will Smith’s face is simply not “rejuvenated”, but completely re-created in computer graphics, from scratch.

As he told us in an interview in September 2019, the first challenge for Eng Lee was to find an actor who was popular enough to arouse emotions in viewers at the age of 53 as 23:

“Due to the nature of the film, there were probably only two or three stars left on the top in the last thirty years who were able to do so.”– says Eng Lee. “ He is one of the rare actors and when he agreed, we said to ourselves: “Foo, it’s good. “”

The next challenge, of course, was technical. How to rejuvenate Will Smith In the most convincing way? Although old pictures of the actor were used to build the junior appearance Gemini manHowever, they did not form the basis of the character.

Indeed, to create it, Ang Lee And his team relied heavily on conquering the play and, consequently, on Will Smith’s acting talent. Like Andy Serkis in The Hobbit or Zoe Saldana Avatar, the actor was appropriately equipped, especially at his facial level, loaded with multiple sensors that were to record his slightest facial expressions and multiply them digitally:

“It’s not about regeneration or image replacement. Junior is entirely digitally created and 100% directs performance shooting.” Thus explained Head of Visual Effects Bill Westenhofer. Hence the revolutionary rejuvenation technique that started with Will Smith’s surprise:

“The first time I saw myself, It was awful. I was”, He trusted. “In front of me for 23 years was my perfect version, as if someone had erased all my flaws. Cinematographically speaking, it’s amazing. From now on it will affect the way I shoot and watch movies.”

(Re) Discover our interview with Eng Lee for “The Twins Man” …