The recently leaked news caused a sensation in the USA: the well-known actor Bruce Willis it would be the first in the world to have ceded the rights to his face. The agreement would allow the buying company to create new films and virtual reality products by exploiting the actor's image for years to come (virtually even after his death, as is already the case today for artists such as Marilyn Monroe). The technique adopted, if you know what I'm talking about, is the deepfake.
The "tip" comes from the English newspaper The Telegraph, which among its pages tell the details of the agreement. The actor, who recently announced his retirement for health reasons, "would sell out" to tech firm Deepcake. One of its "digital twin" would be used in future projects still being defined. As in any Hollywood story, however, suspense is a must.
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Bottom line: Willis' entourage denies this deal, despite being the subject of much more than just a rumor. What is the truth? It sounds like a cliché, but as often happens, the truth lies somewhere in between. I become a fact-checker (for you this and more), and I liquidate it in a few questions. Did Willis make deals with the company? SI. And for a long time. Do these agreements involve the creation of a digital twin starting from the actor's face? SI. Obviously. Will Deepcake be able to do what he wants with the actor's face? NO. “The decision”, they specify in the company, “will always be up to Willis or his representatives”.
…but not only.
And now, since we're in Hollywood, a twist. Willis's face cloned from Deepcake's deepfake (but did they really have to be called that?) Has already been used. In 2021, for an advertising campaign in Russia that promoted the services of the telephone operator MegaFon. Do you recognize him?
Paradoxes of a familiar face
La neural network who created the face of Bruce Willis for this commercial was trained on the contents of Die Hard e Fifth Element. This restores a certain charisma to the actor, who performs at the height of his artistic splendor. Too bad it's not him in the flesh: in March, Willis' family took to social media to let everyone know that the actor would be "walking away" from his career. What stops him is an unfortunate diagnosis for an actor: aphasia. A disorder that limits cognitive abilities, and makes it impossible to learn a script.
Now Willis has only one chance to continue acting: not to be him anymore. Just one of the paradoxes that the "doppelgangers" created by deepfake will show us in the future.
