Scary. Terrifying. Deeply misguided.
Those were among the visceral reactions this week from Emily Blunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Natasha Lyonne and many other actors and filmmakers over the sudden fame of Tilly Norwood.
Norwood isn’t real — the brunet woman who appears in a comedy sketch on her Instagram page is in fact a computer-generated composite.
“I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now,” states a message on Norwood’s Instagram page. “I am so excited for what’s coming next!”
The sentiment was not widely shared, at least in Hollywood, where anxieties about the use and abuse of artificial intelligence replacing actors run deep.
Norwood’s creator ignited a furor after she announced that the digital actor would soon be signed by a talent agency.
This week, SAG-AFTRA weighed in with a withering response, dismissing Norwood as a “character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers.”
Two years ago, the union’s members engaged in a 118-day strike to fight for more AI protections in their contracts with major studios.
“They are taking our professional members’ work that has been created, sometimes over generations, without permission, without compensation and without acknowledgment, building something new,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said in an interview.
“But the truth is, it’s not new. It manipulates something that already exists, so the conceit that it isn’t harming actors — because it is its own new thing — ignores the fundamental truth that it is taking something that doesn’t belong to them,” Astin said.
Astin said he would welcome a conversation with the company behind Tilly Norwood.
“We want to allow our members to benefit from new technologies,” Astin said. “They just need to know that it’s happening. They need to give permission for it, and they need to be bargained with.”
Norwood was created by AI through Xicoia, a London-based AI talent studio launched by Dutch actor Eline Van der Velden. Xicoia is working with estates and Hollywood stars who want to appear as their younger selves on screen, according to Deadline, which first reported talent agency interest in Norwood.
Van der Velden, who is also the founder of AI production company Particle6, was not available for comment on Wednesday. But in a statement posted on Instagram following the backlash, Van der Velden stressed that Norwood is “a creative work — a piece of art.”
“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool — a new paintbrush,” Van der Velden said. “Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.”
Norwood has 44,000 followers on Instagram and is portrayed as an aspiring young actor based in London who enjoys shopping and iced coffee.
The social media page depicts Norwood in various scenes. In one, she’s armed and ready to battle a monster; in another, she’s running away from a collapsing building in a futuristic city.
At an industry panel in Zurich on Saturday, Van der Velden touted her creation.
“With Tilly, you know, when we first launched her, people were like, ‘That’s not going to happen,’ ” Van der Velden said. “And now, we’re going to announce which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months. It’s all changing and everyone is starting to see the light, fortunately.”
Talent agencies have represented digital characters used in ad campaigns. And seeing such avatars in the mainstream has become increasingly common — in 2024, Japanese digital character Hatsune Miku performed at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and an AI model was featured in the August issue of Vogue magazine for L.A. brand Guess.
And some studios, including Lionsgate, have partnerships with AI startups to explore using the technology in areas such as storyboarding. Others, such as Netflix and Amazon MGM Studios, have series that use AI in visual effects.
Tech companies have argued that they should be able to train their AI models on content available online and bring up relevant information under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows for the limited reproduction of content without permission from the copyright holder.
But the proliferation of AI has also fueled concerns that AI companies are using copyrighted material to train their models without compensation or permission. Earlier this year, Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery sued AI companies over copyright infringement.
Some actors called for a boycott of any agents who decide to represent Norwood. “Read the room, how gross,” “In the Heights” actor Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram.
“Our members reserve the right to not be in business with representatives who are operating in an unfair conflict of interest, who are operating in bad faith,” Astin said.
