Andy Serkis Addresses The Serious Issues That Can Come From De-Aging and CGI Actors
Filmmaking technology is getting pretty crazy these days, especially when it comes to digitally de-aging actors like Marvel has done several times. Then there’s the creation of full-on CGI actors like what director Ang Lee has done with Will Smith in Gemini Man, and Lucasfilm did with Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in Rogue One. Then, of course, that all goes along with the motion capture performances.
Andy Serkis has kinda led the charge on motion capture performances ever since he brought the character Gollum to life in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since those movies were made, though, the filmmaking technology has changed drastically and we are going to start seeing more and more of this in the future and Serkis believes that this raises some serious issues.
During an interview with Screen Daily, Serkis discussed some of the potential problems that could arise down the line:
“The ability to create photorealistic characters, to digitally de-age actors or digitally resurrect performances from actors who have passed, raises some serious issues.
“When your performance becomes data it can be manipulated, reworked or sampled, much like the music industry samples vocals and beats. If we can do that, where does the intellectual property lie? Who owns authorship of the performance? Where are the boundaries?”
He goes on to ask:
”If an actor’s performance from one movie is re-used in another there should be remuneration for that actor, no question. It is their performance and… they should be paid for it.”
Those are some good points and questions that he raises here. He goes on to discuss how the tech can be used for good, saying, “Performance capture is the end of typecasting. With it, there should be great opportunities for disabled actors to play able-bodied characters.” Then, of course, there’s the whole ethical aspect of it in regards to diversity, in which he says:
“It would be possible for an actor of color to play Abraham Lincoln and for me, as a middle-class white man, to play Martin Luther King. The question is whether that is ethically right. Diversity is hugely important so I can understand sensitivities about this.”
We haven’t seen any big issues regarding this technology yet. The biggest controversy I’ve seen came from fans getting riled up over Peter Cushing being brought back to life in CGI form for Rogue One. I don’t really see a resolution to any of these questions happening anytime soon, but I’m sure that a time will come when Hollywood is going to have to start regulating things and figuring all this stuff out so that the tech can’t be abused.