Digital makeup

Tuesday, 30 November 2010 22:30

It's the sort of plot Hollywood's been banging on about for years...

but now it's suddenly become real:

technology that takes 30 years off an actor.

I can play someone at any age. It's the beginning of a new era of film-making,' said Jeff Bridges on the sequel to Tron

I’m a pretty lazy guy,’ Jeff Bridges announces.

‘I spend most of my time avoiding work. Honestly, I do my best to turn everything down...’

His drive to make movies has been replaced by a desire to stay at home with Susan, his wife of 33 years, play the guitar, listen to country music and indulge his passions for photography and ceramics at their 20-acre ranch in Santa Barbara, California.

The irony is that the few roles Bridges accepts invariably result in exceptional performances. He won this year’s Best Actor Oscar for his poignant portrayal of the gruff, dissipated country-music star Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, and at 60 he’s more in demand than ever.

‘The more I say no the more great roles I get offered. But I know the effort it takes once you engage and commit. Also, it takes me away from my sweetheart, my leading lady. My wife tells me we’ve been apart 11 months this past year because of movies.’

Bridges’ latest film is an epic: Disney’s futuristic $300 million sci-fi sequel Tron: Legacy, out on December 17. He stars as video-game visionary Kevin Flynn, a character he first played almost 30 years ago.

The original Tron, released in 1982, sees computer hacker Flynn being abducted into the world of a computer and forced to participate in gladiatorial games. Tron: Legacy follows Flynn’s son, who gets sucked into the digital universe and discovers his long-lost father trapped by his father’s best ever creation, the Machiavellian program Clu 2 (a digital version of Bridges in his thirties).

‘He’s the first actor in cinematic history to play opposite a younger version of himself,’ says visual-effects supervisor Eric Barba.

New technology enabled film-makers to record the star’s facial movements in minute detail and then superimpose them onto a digital model of his younger self.

‘This opens up the way for tales that couldn’t have been told before,’ says Barba.

For Bridges, the development marks a new epoch in cinema.

‘Whenever I see a big, epic film where the character has aged from being a boy to an old man, traditionally there are different actors playing him and there’s always a little bump for me when they change from one actor to the next. But now I can play someone at any age. It’s the beginning of a new era of film-making.

‘This technology means I’d never have to work again in my life and I could still make films. I can say, “I’ll lease you my image.” In a few years they’ll be able to take aspects of three different actors and make a fourth character. It’s getting weird. They can say, “Let’s put Bridges in here, but I want a little Al Pacino in there – what the heck. Let’s see what kind of guy we come up with.” I think they’ll have this ability to go, “We’re going to give you lots of money; you just come in and do all your expressions, be real, sad, happy… and that’s it.”’

Is he joking?

‘No, this is where movies are starting to go now. They’re taking the actors and putting them in a computer, very much like Tron. It’s got to the stage where we’re close to not having to work at all.’

We’re meeting at Digital Domain, close to Venice Beach in LA, the special-effects studio where Bridges has been recording expressions for the younger version of himself. There’s an almost empty glass of red wine on the table and a jug of water with two glasses (the Disney team have warned me that the eco-conscious actor loathes plastic bottles).

Close up, Bridges looks rugged and healthy, wearing a casual, untucked denim shirt, jeans and boots; the blond Californian good looks have matured. Was it strange seeing the younger version of himself?

‘Not too much, because I see myself a lot in my old movies. My wife was very critical of the digital image at first. She was honing in on the features of my face that she knows so well, but in the end she thought they did a pretty good job.’