Keeping Actors Young Forever Using “Avatar” Technology

Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch blog has highlighted an interesting idea – what if the technology used in the movie “Avatar” could help keep actors “young forever”? Director James Cameron explains that the scanning process is so detailed that current scans of actors could be used indefinitely:

In a way, Cameron has already pulled off this trick: Sigourney Weaver appears to drop 20 years whenever she slips her consciousness into an alien body in Avatar. But Cameron’s facial scanning process is so precise—zeroing in to the very pores of an actor’s skin—that virtually any manipulation is possible. You may not be able to totally replace an actor—“There’s no way to scan what’s underneath the surface to what the actor is feeling,” the director notes—but it is now theoretically possible to extend careers by digitally keeping stars young pretty much forever. “If Tom Cruise left instructions for his estate that it was okay to use his likeness in Mission Impossible movies for the next 500 years, I would say that would be fine,” says Cameron.

Popwatch: “James Cameron on how ‘Avatar’ technology could keep Clint Eastwood young forever”