Tilly Norwood is a London-based actress with about 40,000 Instagram followers. Also, she’s not real — she is an AI-generated character created by Xicoia, the AI division of the production company Particle6.
Eline Van der Velden, the Dutch producer who founded Particle6, introduced the idea of Norwood at the Zurich Film Festival in September. Van der Velden is currently seeking an agent to represent Norwood, who has garnered strong reactions from Hollywood.
Actress Emily Blunt — known for her roles in films like “The Devil Wears Prada,” “A Quiet Place,” and “Oppenheimer” — found out about Norwood while recording a podcast with Variety.
“Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary,” Blunt told Variety. “Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.”
SAG-AFTRA, the union representing entertainment and media professionals, released a statement in opposition to synthetic performers like Norwood.
“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation,” SAG-AFTRA wrote. “It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
Due to the backlash, Van der Velden wrote a response post on the Tilly Norwood Instagram account.
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“She is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity,” Van der Velden wrote.
But actual human actors have been wary of the implications of AI that can create believable videos, something that’s become even more real this week with OpenAI’s release of Sora 2. That’s why organizations like SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America have advocated for contractual protections against being replaced by AI.
“Producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used,” SAG-AFTRA wrote.
