Is the first AI ‘actor’ the beginning of Hollywood’s existential crisis?

Hollywood has long been obsessed with tales of popular actors fighting to keep young rivals from replacing them on the marquee. Exhibit A: “All About Eve.” Now the competition is coming not from fresh-faced ingenues but from an artificial intelligence “actor” named Tilly Norwood.

Norwood is a “British-accented brunette” who does not exist in the real world, said Vanity Fair. The creator, Dutch producer Eline Van der Velden, expects to sign Norwood with a talent agency and hopes it can rival stars like Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson at the box office. Norwood “is not a replacement for a human being but a creative work — a piece of art,” Van der Velden said on Instagram. The backlash from Hollywood has been both fierce and a bit despairing. The arrival of an “AI actor” is the “end of the industry as we know it,” director Luca Guadagnino said on X.

"Guilds, actors and filmmakers” have reacted to Norwood’s emergence with an “immediate wave of backlash,” said The Associated Press. Acting performances should remain “human-centered,” the Screen Actors Guild said in a statement. Film and TV audiences “aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.” The use of AI in film and TV productions was a “major bargaining point” in the 2023 actors strike, said the AP, but its implementation continues to be “hotly debated."

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What did the commentators say?

Calling Norwood an actor is “inaccurate, it’s insulting,” Jenelle Riley said at Variety. Van der Velden calls Norwood a “creation,” though terms like “deepfake” or “animated character” might also work. Van der Velden’s references to Portman and Johansson reveal a “grotesque lack of understanding” of how acting works and “precisely what makes those actors special.” Norwood is merely an “attractive face that can repeat lines.” Unlike Johansson, “you’re not going to see Norwood suing Disney for pay she’s owed.” That may be part of the appeal.

Norwood “represents Tinseltown’s death knell,” Vinay Menon said at The Toronto Star. Artificial intelligence is already making it a “scary time” to be a “law student, a young software engineer, a young data analyst, a young accountant” or any other kind of young professional starting a career. The problem? “Human greed.” There is no evidence Norwood “could nail a Nespresso ad,” but AI is “impervious” to the annoyances of human actors who “flub lines” and “have contract demands.” The best that those humans can hope for is that Norwood’s debut is a “box office bomb."

What next?

Finding an agent for Norwood might be tough. Norwood “does not have a future” at some of the best-known talent agencies, said The Wrap. “We represent humans,” said Richard Weitz, the co-chairman of WME Group. Gersh Agency will also not sign Norwood, said Variety. But the issue of AI performance is “going to keep coming up,” said Gersh President Leslie Siebert. “And we have to figure out how to deal with it in the proper way."