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From Shah Rukh Khan to Vijay, Here's How De-Ageing Tech is Reimagining India's Biggest Stars On-Screen
De-ageing technology has started to dominate Indian cinema, preserving ageing male stars’ youthful allure. Yet, this pursuit highlights insecurities, rising VFX challenges and evolving audience expectations towards authenticity over illusion
The spotlight in showbiz has always been unforgiving. Ageing, once deemed a professional death knell, was predominantly a plight reserved for women.
Meanwhile, their male counterparts were allowed to gracefully transition from leading men to revered patriarchs, often occupying pivotal character roles. Amitabh Bachchan’s career has been the prime example of this trajectory, by successfully building a second career in the later years of his professional life.
But times are changing, and with them, the insecurities of Indian cinema’s leading men have come into stark focus.
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In the last decade, especially since Shah Rukh Khan’s ambitious experiment with dual roles in Fan (2016), the taboo surrounding age has undergone a curious inversion. Leading men — some well past their prime — have chosen to defy the march of time through technology.
“In movies like Fan or Jawan (2023), de-ageing allows Khan to convincingly portray multiple roles of varying ages, often appearing on screen together,” says Keitan Yadav, chief operating officer at Red Chillies VFX. Similarly, he adds, “In films like Laal Singh Chaddha (2022) and Animal (2023) de-ageing helps to depict flashback scenes by showing a younger version of the same character”.
This is to say that there’s no vanity attached to why an actor would be de-aged and the technology is only used to serve a narrative purpose. “Unlike AI-generated imagery, which is often used experimentally or for novelty, de-ageing is a precise, commercial process integrated into a well-established pipeline that adheres strictly to the narrative needs,” says Haresh Hingorani, chief creative officer at Red Chillies VFX.
But the burgeoning trend of de-ageing actors is no longer confined to films. It has seeped into advertising campaigns, music videos, and video podcasts.
“A superstar spent ₹5 crore out of his pocket to get himself de-aged for a small appearance on his relative’s podcast. This goes on YouTube, there’s little to no return-on-investment, but this is how they keep the narrative in control,” says an industry source.
VISUAL ARTISTS ASSUMING CENTRE STAGE
Visual effects (VFX) artists, once relegated to the background, are now central to this narrative. “De-ageing is completely VFX work. There’s no one way to do it,” explains Aneesh Kutti, a VFX director who recently worked on Aashiq Abu’s Rifle Club (2024). “The most important part is to be able to achieve a solid track of the face using a combination of smart vectors and additional face-tracking tools. Once this is achieved, it’s left to the [compositors] or the paint artists to remove wrinkles, fine lines, and any saggy skin.”
“De-ageing requires us to meticulously work on every single frame in which the actor appears, demanding an in-depth understanding of human facial anatomy,” says Yadav. The process is labour intensive and requires long hours of work. “Artists need to be well-versed in the intricacies of the face, such as skin pores, sub-surface scattering, and muscle movement. Our goal is to ensure that the de-ageing effect doesn’t strip away the natural human qualities of the face or make it appear clay-like or artificial,” adds Hingorani.
If done shoddily, removing wrinkles off an actor’s face can erase their facial expressions or make it seem like the mouth is moving in isolation from the rest of the face. “We recently saw a botched job with Prabhas; everyone was complaining about how his facial movements were uncanny in Adipurush (2023).... That’s why all major actors are flocking to Los Angeles to get 360-degree motion captures done,” the source adds.
In the past, when an actor was supposed to play different age groups, they relied on prosthetics. “While we are still using prosthetics, de-ageing through VFX now plays a crucial role as the final layer, seamlessly blending all these elements into believable characters,” says Yadav. Kutti elaborates, “We can use 3D output as well, if necessary. Nowadays, artificial intelligence also helps with newer solutions. Deepfakes are an early example of this. In the future, this can even be used to tamper with performances. You can change expressions even to the point where an actor’s acting prowess can be fixed if the director feels something is missing.”
Rajinikanth, often hailed as the ultimate superstar, has also leaned heavily on technology in recent years. In films like 2.0 (2018), his digital avatar exudes a vitality that belies his actual age. Yet, fans continue to adore him — wrinkles and all — when he appears unfiltered in public events. This duality underscores a deeper truth: Technology can create illusions, but it’s the human connection that sustains stardom.
Increasingly, however, ageing stars are refusing to do public appearances for fear of revealing their “untouched” faces. “If they were only using VFX to tell the story, they wouldn’t have trouble owning up to looking their age, right? But you see in ads and posters, and even in small events, the big stars are asking for digital touch-ups,” reveals a source close to the stars.
Salman Khan has often found himself at the centre of the de-ageing debate. His films, such as Bharat (2019) and Radhe (2021), feature him as an ageless action hero. The narrative demands of these roles are simple: Salman must look and act like the ‘Bhai’ of yesteryears. “For some of these actors, de-ageing is less about vanity and more about relevance,” explains an industry insider. “Admitting they are ageing feels like admitting defeat [to them].”
MORE THAN JUST THE FACE
However, the financial stakes extend far beyond the actors themselves. Production houses, advertisers, and even streamers are invested in perpetuating the myth of their eternal youth. A single billboard featuring a visibly aged superstar could tarnish the brand value cultivated over decades.
Tamil superstar Vijay’s fan base is no stranger to this phenomenon. In recent years, he has increasingly relied on digital touch-ups to maintain his youthful screen presence. “When a star like Vijay is in a movie like [The Greatest of All Time (GOAT, 2024)], it creates curiosity about a new technology,” says T. Udaya Kumar, sound designer for the film. “Until the release of the film, de-ageing was not as common a term as it has become now. This is good for the industry because it brings credit to technicians.”
Udaya Kumar also sheds light on the unique challenges of recreating Vijay’s younger self. “They had to do with creating the right voice for his younger version. During the actual shoot, what we get as the recorded sound is of the actor who stands in for younger Vijay. The first stage, then, is for Vijay to dub over these portions with a thinner voice that resembles his voice from years ago. As a sound designer, my reference was his films from the mid ’90s. So, I tried to match his voice to that of his character in the 1995 film Deva.”
Beyond voices, the interplay between sound design and VFX introduces another layer of complexity. “It was that track with the treated new voice that I had given to the VFX team to use when they worked on creating the de-aged look. There may have been a mismatch because the final character we see in the film is after face replacement has been done over the stand-in actor. Which means even the VFX artist needs to listen to the final voice to fix the lip sync.”
The phenomenon of de-ageing extends beyond film to the broader entertainment industry. Music videos, award show appearances, and even brand endorsements are increasingly reliant on digital enhancements. “The term de-ageing has become very popular due to the release of GOAT, but a more muted version of it has been around for a decade,” says Sajeer Abdul Salam, a VFX artist who has worked on Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). “A cheaper version of de-ageing has to do with the work that we would refer to as clean-up. In this, we would remove wrinkles on the actor’s face, remove spots on the skin, or make small fixes in the hairstyle.”
SAFEGUARDING YOUTH?
Additionally, young actors are taking measures to bottle their youth. “Younger actors are creating detailed recordings of their facial and physical features to use in future films. For this, they scan their entire body and face with the use of multiple 360-degree cameras. They have to emote all the expressions and are required to speak the vowels and a set of other sentences. They are made to run and walk in a few signature styles. With all this information, this actor can play their present age in any film in the future if they require such a character in a flashback or otherwise,” says Kutti.
This also opens other possibilities for stars to work fewer hours, “A big star can have a person be their stand-in and have their likeness be used to replace the artiste,” says a source.
AI will help reduce actors’ workloads by handling minor dubbing fixes and patchwork, which currently require time-consuming studio sessions. “When we needed a special voice for the trailer of Kanguva (2024), we were able to create that with the use of AI,” says Udaya Kumar, highlighting its potential for efficiency in production.
Unlike Hollywood, where advancements in AI caused multiple strikes, ethical concerns don’t seem to be all that pressing in this part of the world, “Eventually, this data too is owned by the actor so it cannot be misused,” says Kutti. Hingorani adds, “As far as we know, the industry strictly adheres to obtaining permissions and following legal protocols before proceeding with de-ageing, ensuring that both the story’s demands and the actor’s legacy are preserved.”
In a culture that reveres its elders but simultaneously glorifies youth, the push for de-ageing feels both inevitable and contradictory.
“Everyone is chasing this technology because it extends their shelf life as a hero. Instead of paving the way for the next generation, they want to hang on for as long as humanly, or technologically possible,” says the source.
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Despite valiant efforts, Indian cinema has a long way to go in achieving results that are at par with global standards. “Barring a couple of big names, we don’t see good quality work in our films. This is especially frustrating because most of Hollywood’s work happens here,” says the source.
“Hollywood studios, when they work with Indian firms, pay close to ₹50,000 per person a day for such VFX work. In comparison, Indian films only pay ₹10,000. Most VFX companies then try to finish up all such work in a shorter time to focus on Hollywood films. That might be the reason why our films struggle to achieve that perfection,” says Salam.
Cinema is built on illusion, and the pursuit of eternal youth may well be its most compelling and tragic performance yet. But maybe the audience is ready for a new kind of hero — one who embraces time not as an enemy, but as an ally.