Although Bruce Willis introduced he’s retiring from his appearing profession following an aphasia analysis earlier this yr, the actor has reportedly offered his rights to permit for a sanctioned deepfake “digital twin” to reside on and carry out in future initiatives. According to The Telegraph, Willis–whose neurological illness limits talking and understanding speech–has change into the primary Hollywood star to promote his rights to permit for upcoming performances with out ever setting foot on a set.

Willis has been “employed” by American agency Deepcake, whose web site has printed an announcement from Willis that partly reads: “It’s a terrific alternative for me to return in time… With the appearance of the fashionable expertise, I may talk, work and take part in filming, even being on one other continent.” Willis’ likeness will likely be used for future movie, promoting, and different initiatives.

Deepcake engineers created the “digital twin” from content material in Die Hard and Fifth Element, when Willis was 32 and 42, respectively. Willis’s property has ultimate approval on any initiatives. You can see for your self what this concept appears like in an advert that was launched final yr for Megafon, the third largest telecom operator in Russia. Willis’s face was swapped onto actor Konstantin Solovyov.

This expertise, perhaps as soon as thought of a sci-fi fever dream lower than a decade in the past, has shortly change into a actuality that is already right here. Earlier this yr, actor James Earl Jones introduced he was “stepping again” as Darth Vader’s voice, making means for an AI program to take over the position whilst he has a contract in place to guarantee he will likely be Darth Vader, actually, eternally. The Star Wars franchise particularly has lengthy dabbled with this tech, together with digital variations of younger Mark Hamill in The Book of Boba Fett, and each Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing seem in Star Wars: Rogue One–despite the truth that each are lifeless.