Tilly Norwood & Co: How AI changes Hollywood

Hollywood is afraid of a woman. The special thing: This woman is not real. She is the AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood. She was created by the production company Particle6. Its founder, Eline Van der Velden, claimed at the Zurich Film Festival that several agencies were already interested in the AI actress. This caused an outcry in the dream factory.

The US actors' union SAG-AFTRA promptly followed up with a critical statement: "'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."

Hollywood stars have also spoken out critically, including "Poker Face" star Natasha Lyonne and Emily Blunt. According to Lyonne, all talent agencies working with Norwood should be boycotted. And Blunt also expressed her shock:

That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don't do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.

SAG-AFTRA's reaction reflects the anger and insecurity of an industry that not only fears for its jobs. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the very foundation of Hollywood is at stake: human creativity. Tilly Norwood is just the tip of the iceberg. AI has long since made its way into the film industry. In many cases, in a very subtle way. In such a way that viewers hardly notice it. In this video, we take a closer look at the phenomenon and show you where AI is already playing a role in Hollywood!

Use of AI in Oscar films

AI is even being used in acclaimed dramas such as "The Brutalist". Brady Corbet's film about an architect from Hungary who emigrates to the US after the Second World War was one of the hottest Oscar contenders of 2025. In fact, lead actor Adrien Brody was awarded the coveted trophy for Best Actor in a Leading Role. However, the film caused controversy in advance because Brody's pronunciation had been tampered with. With the help of an AI tool called Respeecher, his dialogues spoken in Hungarian were supposed to appear more realistic. It was all about nuances. It was about fine-tuning the pronunciation of certain vowels and consonants. Nevertheless, there was a wave of outrage. The authenticity of Brody's highly acclaimed performance was suddenly called into question. The fact that the actor had meticulously prepared for his role and the associated Hungarian pronunciation became a minor matter.

Respeecher was also used in Jacques Audiard's musical "Emilia Pérez". The aim here was to refine the pronunciation of the lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón in the vocal interludes. As in the case of "The Brutalist", viewers are unlikely to notice this. Nevertheless, this raises the question of the credibility of an actor's performance. Especially when the viewer cannot clearly distinguish between what is real and what is AI-generated. Above all, however, it feeds the fear that this is just the beginning of a far-reaching development. A development at the end of which real actors will no longer be necessary, just a whole lot of Tilly Norwoods.

The immortals: De-aging and digital resurrection

To some extent, however, AI also supports existing tools - especially in the field of CGI. Do you remember Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"? The first 20 minutes of the movie show an Indy in his prime. That's not a mask, that's pure computing power: AI has analyzed thousands of hours of old film footage of the actor and superimposed a younger version over today's face.

That sounds technically fascinating, but it raises new questions: If we can digitally rejuvenate actors or even bring back deceased ones - why do we still need new blood? Will we only see films with the same 20 superstars in the future? If all audiences want is nostalgia, that's exactly what AI will deliver - in a continuous loop. So even more repetition in Hollywood - one of the biggest criticisms in recent years.

Art from the computer

But the increasing influence of artificial intelligence is not just about actors. The current development in Hollywood is also causing headaches for artists behind the camera. One prominent example is the Marvel production "Secret Invasion". More precisely: the intro to the streaming series. Because it was generated with AI, the outrage was not long in coming. This could also be seen in the reaction of concept artist Jeff Simpson: He had worked on the series for six months and then made his frustration clear in a social media post:

"Secret Invasion" intro is AI generated. I'm devastated, I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous and designed solely to eliminate artists careers.

Incidentally, the Marvel series starring Samuel L. Jackson is about, of all things, an alien conspiracy to replace humans with shape-shifting aliens. What a bitter irony in view of the artists, who in turn fear being replaced by AI.

The manipulation of finished films

Artificial intelligence also has an influence on the subsequent adaptation of films that have actually been shot: one example is dubbing. We all know it: the sound often doesn't really match the lip movements when you watch a movie in a different language.

New AI tools such as TrueSync are radically changing this. They adapt the lip movements of the actors in the picture to the spoken language of the dubbing actors after the fact. This completely blurs the boundaries between the original and the edited version.

It got even crazier with the thriller "Fall". The film was originally full of swearing, which would have meant an R rating in the USA - meaning less revenue. Instead of expensive reshoots, AI was used to digitally alter the actresses' lip movements and put more harmless words in their mouths. The result? An adult movie without the actors ever being on set again. Efficient? Yes. But aren't we tampering with the original artistic vision?

Screenwriter: ChatGPT

Even more worrying for the US film industry, however, could be a movie from Switzerland. "The Last Screenwriter" , a science fiction drama whose screenplay was written entirely by an AI, was released in 2024. In fact, ChatGPT 4 is listed as the screenwriter in the work of Swiss director Peter Luisi. In turn, the film centers on a screenwriter who, in the face of artificial intelligence, asks himself whether AI is artistically superior to him. As a self-referential experiment, "The Last Screenwriter" has a certain appeal. However, the fact that an entire film can now be written by an AI is unlikely to please real screenwriters. After all, this also raises the question of whether they won't simply be replaced by artificial intelligence at some point. Because regardless of the quality of the result, one thing is already certain: if an AI writes the script, you can save yourself the money for an expensive screenplay.

Above all, AI means saving money

And that's what it's all about in the end: maximizing profits. Whether jobs and human creativity fall by the wayside doesn't seem to worry at least one Hollywood star: Ashton Kutcher. The actor sees the future of filmmaking in Sora, the generative video tool from OpenAI. In an interview with ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Kutcher expressed his enthusiasm for making the film industry much more cost-effective with the help of artificial intelligence:

Why would you go out and shoot an establishing shot of a house in a television show when you could just create the establishing shot for 100 dollars? To go out and shoot it would cost you thousands of dollars.

Hollywood fights back

Hollywood's unions are not quite as relaxed about the whole thing as Ashton Kutcher. In 2023, the actors' union SAG-AFTRA and the writers' union WGA went on strike for months, also over the regulation of AI. The result: an agreement was reached with the US film studios on certain rules that were laid down in the collective agreements. Among other things, it was stipulated that actors must give their consent for a scan of their face and body to be used to create a digital copy of the actor. However, the contract is initially only valid for three years. And many small actors and extras in particular are probably happy to take this easy money for the scan anyway - making themselves superfluous in the long term.

The future of old Hollywood is at stake

Hollywood is in the midst of a gold rush, and AI is the shovel. Whether it's Adrien Brody's pronunciation, cheaply produced scripts or digital extras - Pandora's box is open.

The success of the unions was an important victory, a stop sign for total automation. The question is: how long will it last? Technology will soon be able to do things that we can't even dream of today.

Of course, cinema has always been magic and illusion. The only question is: do we want this illusion to be created by people who feel, suffer and love? Or are we satisfied with a perfect calculation that shows us exactly what we want to see?