Tom Hanks and Robin Wright Are De-Aged by Decades in ‘Here’ First Look Photos; Robert Zemeckis Reveals the Camera Never Moves in 104-Minute Film
Tom Hanks and Robin Wright appear decades younger in first-look photos from “Here,” their highly-anticipated reunion with “Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis. The movie was even co-written by Zemeckis and “Forrest Gump” scribe Eric Roth.
Based on Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel of the same name, “Here” takes place across a century in a single location. The camera never moves from a fixed position inside a home for the entire 104-minute runtime, as the viewers are treated to the stories of the people who made a home there. The central couple is played by Hanks and Wright.
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“The single perspective never changes, but everything around it does,” Zemeckis recently told Vanity Fair about the ambitious storytelling conceit. “It’s actually never been done before. There are similar scenes in very early silent movies, before the language of montage was invented. But other than that, yeah, it was a risky venture.”
“That’s the excitement of it,” Zemeckis added. “What passes by this view of the universe? I think it’s an interesting way to do a meditation on mortality. It taps into the universal theme that everything passes.”
Hanks stars as baby boomer Richard and Wright plays his late teenage girlfriend and eventual wife Margaret. Through traditional makeup effects and digital de-aging technology, Hanks appears as young as a teenager and as old as an 80-year-old during the decades-spanning movie.
“I’ve always been, for some reason, labeled as this visual effects guy. But those were always there to serve as the character arc,” Zemeckis told Vanity Fair. “There’s always been a restlessness in trying. I’ve always thought that our job as filmmakers is to show the audience things that they don’t see in real life.”
“It only works because the performances are so good,” he added. “Both Tom and Robin understood instantly that, ‘Okay, we have to go back and channel what we were like 50 years ago or 40 years ago, and we have to bring that energy, that kind of posture, and even raise our voices higher. That kind of thing.”
Other characters that appear inside the home in “Here” over the decades are Richard’s parents, Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose (Kelly Reilly), a couple at the turn of the 20th century (Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee) and an inventor and a pin-up model during the 1920s (David Fynn and Ophelia Lovibond), among others.
Audiences have not exactly embraced de-aging effects over the years. Filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee and James Mangold have all tried to impress by de-aging big stars like Robert De Niro (“The Irishman”), Will Smith (“Gemini Man”) and Harrison Ford (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), but not all moviegoers have been convinced. George Miller even said it was the iffy de-aging effects in films such as “The Irishman” that made him not de-age Charlize Theron for his “Mad Max” prequel “Furiosa” because the technology just isn’t up to speed yet.
“Here” will open in theaters nationwide on Nov. 15 from Sony. Check out first look photos from the film below.
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