According to hollywoodreporter.com, Bruce Willis’ team has dismissed the notion that the star has sold his digital likeness to a deepfake company. Recent media reports suggested that the actor had sold his rights to Deepcake to authorize the creation of a “digital twin” of himself to appear in projects after announcing that he was stepping away from performing. In a statement that was shared with The Hollywood Reporter, Willis’ representatives stated that he, “has no partnership or agreement with this Deepcake company.” A publicist for Deepcake also confirmed to THR that Willis’ digital likeness rights can’t be sold, as they are his by default, and continued to say that the company’s involvement with Willis was set up through his representatives at CAA. They went on to explain that the company had created his digital twin for a 2021 ad and that any future use of the likeness would be entirely up to Willis.
Deepcake’s website says that their digital-twin technology gives the ability for A-list actors to virtually use their likeness for marketing campaigns without the need to actually appear in front of the camera. Willis was quoted in speaking about his likeness and said that, “I liked the precision of my character, It’s a great opportunity for me to go back in time. The neural network was trained on content of Die Hard and Fifth Element, so my character is similar to the images of that time.”
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