If you would do a double take to see a younger looking Billy Crystal on Friday’s episode of Foryou are not alone. His wife too!
Crystal, 76, told Yahoo Entertainment how he grew older for a flashback scene in the psychological thriller. The actor said he’s not a fan of double casting, meaning they would have cast a younger actor to play his character Eli, so he relied on Deep Voodoo’s “amazing” deepfake technology to make it happen.
‘I think about what I’ve been through [filming] Mr. Saturday evening in 1991 my head weighed about nine pounds,” he joked, referring to the heavy prosthetics he wore to look older.
Deep Voodoo is an AI entertainment startup founded by South Park‘s Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Weeks before the flashback scene was filmed Fora team from Deep Voodoo took a video sample of Crystal’s face. Crystal told them he wanted to look the same as he did in 1986 Running scared.
“I was in my thirties at the time and that’s the age we wanted [Eli] to be,” Crystal explained. “This system creates a digital mask [you] put on your face. … You had to wear a heavy, black wig, an example. And then the computer takes that and does everything it can to finish it.”
When they shouted for them to stop on set, Crystal got to see the younger version of herself in real time.
“I drove there with a stupid thing on my head and that’s where I came from Running scared. It was crazy. And my wife Janice was on set that day… and she was watching me watch it and I said, ‘This is great.’ And she says, ‘You look incredible. I’m in room 445. That was spectacular,” he remembers.
Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal enter Running scared. (MGM/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Crystal said he is “grateful” that technology like Deep Voodoo exists, although he was concerned about the initial suggestion.
“We were nervous then [writer and creator] Sarah Thorp sent me the idea. I said, ‘We can’t double cast. This is going to be difficult to pull off,” he recalled. ‘I don’t want anyone young to play me. It never connects with the audience. You can do it on stage in a theater… but not on film. This technology came into existence and I am very grateful that it worked so well.”
For follows a child psychiatrist named Eli (Crystal) who begins working with a troubled young boy named Noah. The child seems to have a terrifying connection to his past. It’s a project unlike anything Crystal has ever done before.
“It’s one of my favorite roles I’ve ever had to play,” the actor said of his dramatic turn. “Not just because it’s different, but because it’s a really great arc and a really interesting character. An opportunity, at this point in my career, to branch out and grow was exciting to me.”
For is now streaming on Apple TV+.
