Tom Hanks backs de-ageing technology after use in Here

Tom Hanks has defended the use of de-ageing technology in his movie 'Here'.

The Hollywood icon features alongside his 'Forrest Gump' co-star Robin Wright in the film about a group of people who live on a plot of land over the course of different time periods and praised the software for allowing the cast to look younger when playing characters at different stages of life.

Hanks, 68, told Radio Times magazine: "It's a great tool, because the super computing means you do not have to wait for post-production to do the purely technical visual view of it."

The 'Saving Private Ryan' actor explained that it took the technology a "nanosecond" to do something that would have previously taken six months to complete.

Hanks explained: "It's amazing how both of us became very technical right off the bat.

"I need to have better posture; you have to get off the couch a little bit faster than you did; we both have eyes that know too much. We had to figure out a way to remove that jaded-life quality."

Robin believes that the AI software allowed her and Tom to give a convincing portrayal of their younger selves, even though it still has limitations.

The 58-year-old star said: "We never could have emulated ourselves at 19 in our eyes.

"We have all this life experience now. But the (de-ageing) was a great tool so that we didn't have to cast somebody younger to play us."

Hanks previously suggested that AI has the potential to allow him to continue acting in movies after his death.

He told 'The Adam Buxton Podcast': "I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that's it, but performances can go on and on.

"There'll be nothing to tell you that it's not me and me alone and it's going to have some degree of lifelike quality. That's certainly an artistic challenge but it's also a legal one."

Hanks hopes that the movie – which is directed by Robert Zemeckis - teaches audiences about the "importance of being in the moment".

He said: "I think the impermanence of what happens is something we just have to accept as part of the human condition, right?

"Yesterday means nothing because there's nothing we can do to change it, and tomorrow, it means nothing because there's no way we can predict what's going to be. All we can do is exist today."

The 'Big' star added: "There's an awful lot of philosophy you can jam into that reality, and I think it's manifested from the very first moment of the film, when Robin and I walk in as our older selves to an empty house void of anything that could be a memory other than what we're carrying along in our heads.

"And what speaks to impermanence, as well as also the importance of being in the moment right here, right now, better than that?"