Will an AI Actress Really Become ‘the Next Scarlett Johansson’?
Over the weekend, Hollywood caught wind of a doe-eyed newcomer named Tilly Norwood whom talent agents have allegedly been dying to sign. “We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that’s the aim of what we’re doing,” her rep, Eline van der Velden, told Broadcast International in July. Sure, she can get in line. Controversy officially struck on Saturday when Norwood made her public debut at the Zurich Film Festival. You see, the actress is no Silver Lake barista auditioning for parts in her free time: She is AI.
Van der Velden, a Dutch comedian and technologist, revealed Norwood as a part of the launch of a new AI talent studio called Xicoia. “Budgets are shrinking. Content demand is rising,” she explained on LinkedIn. “Audiences? They care about the story — not whether the star has a pulse.” To me, the launch seems engineered for controversy, a rage-bait bid to attract cynical buy-in. Tech entrepreneurs have been trying to push AI entertainers for a while — remember Lil Miquela? — and Norwood is not anything spectacular. Her Instagram is bland, as is the AI-generated comedy sketch she “acts” in.
But Norwood got publicity, and the backlash was loud and swift. “Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$,” Melissa Barrera posted to Instagram Stories. In the comments of a Deadline report about Norwood, the actress Jenna Leigh Green tagged SAG-AFTRA; meanwhile Lukas Gage joked, “She was a nightmare to work with!!!!” Soon van der Velden wrote in a statement sent to Deadline and posted to Norwood’s social media: “She is not a replacement for a human being.”
The notion that an up-and-coming AI avatar could ever be Scarlett Johansson is especially provocative, considering the actress’s recent win against OpenAI. It is also absurd. Though Hollywood studios may try to save money on background or special effects, they need big-name actors to draw audiences to the box office. And the nature of modern celebrity is such that famous people must constantly prove their humanity. Fans want their idols to spontaneously riff with co-workers on red carpets, pop in somewhere random for lunch, and get messy on social media; the illusion that an actress is just like them can’t be sustained when they know she’s AI. That said, I would like to see Tilly Norwood try to play Samantha in Her.
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