. >> reporter: that's right, there's british actor peter cushing, reprising his role, even though hesed away in 1994. how did they do that? actor guy henry performed the scenes, and the special effects engineers replaced his face with peter cushing's. >> the original plans for the station are kept there. >> reporter: how did the computer know exactly what peter cushing's face looked like, down to the tiniest detail? that's where paul comes in. at his office at the institute for creative technologies at the university of southern california, he's built a death star of his own. the light stage. >> so we're currently surrounded by over 10,000 l.e.d.s, and there's about 20 high quality dslr cameras, and we reconstruct a 3-d model of your face. >> reporter: over 100 famous actors have stood on this spot to be scanned for the movies, including angelina jolie, tom cruise, brad pitt, sigourney weaver, and wayne johnson. once an actor has been scanned into the light stage, engineers can digitally insert him or her into scenes, even if that actor is unavailable, much older or younger, or decea