Is AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood the following Scarlett Johansson?

[ad_1] May a badly named, artificial starlet actually be coming to a theater close to you?

Tilly Norwood hopes so. No, that’s not the title of a Hollywood govt or an indie director. It’s an AI-generated avatar that its creator desires to placed on the large display screen.

Norwood isn’t precisely megawatt-star materials. Her picture is notably unstriking. The doe-eyed, 20-something-looking brunette with a heat, considerably freckled complexion doesn’t look a lot completely different out of your common photogenic influencer. Her Instagram web page is equally bland, devoid of any persona traits or pursuits outdoors ingesting iced espresso and strolling round London. Her bio, nevertheless, has a startling, bleak message, “You’ll both get it, or fake you don’t.”

However, the arrival of Tilly Norwood has Hollywood mad, expertise businesses are shying away from taking up an avatar as a shopper, and for now, Norwood looks like extra of a stunt than an actual menace.

Final week, Eline Van der Velden, CEO and founding father of UK-based AI manufacturing firm Particle6, announced the formation of a brand new AI expertise studio known as Xicoia on the Zurich Movie Competition. The brand new enterprise will deal with creating “hyperreal digital stars” for movies, tv reveals, TikToks, podcasts, advert campaigns, video video games, whereas additionally taking part in the opposite roles of an influencer and interacting with followers. The launch highlighted Norwood, its first shopper creation, which made her first look in Particle6’s portfolio again in July.

In line with Van der Velden, a former actor, the digitally rendered ingénue is already being eyed by a number of expertise businesses, with a proper announcement about her illustration coming quickly. Already, she’s constructing an internet presence, with appearances in a number of AI-generated movies and pictures. Particle6 has additionally positioned her in numerous “motion pictures” and public settings, floating round. She even has an Instagram account with over 50,000 followers.

No matter pleasure Norwood is purportedly stirring within the business — Particle6 may simply be manufacturing hype round their product — the backlash by working actors has been a lot louder. On September 30, SAG-AFTRA released a statement condemning the creation of Norwood, stating that the union “believes creativity is, and may stay, human-centered” and is “against the alternative of human performers by synthetics.” Van der Velden has since responded, claiming on Norwood’s Instagram web page that she “see[s] AI not as a alternative for folks, however as a brand new instrument.”

Nonetheless, amid the alarming photos and frantic reactions, does Hollywood really should be afraid of a faux actress?

It’s secure to say that Norwood’s picture has gone viral over the previous week, extra so out of panic and scrutiny than real curiosity in her as a future Hollywood commodity. (Though, the Free Press published a column praising the creation, whereas additionally surprisingly describing Norwood as a “virgin.”) The excitement began after Deadline published an exclusive report on Particle6’s new AI expertise studio, and Van der Velden claimed that “the twenty first [century] might be outlined by artificial expertise.” Different leisure business commerce publications picked up the story, and robust reactions from numerous actors got here rolling in. Along with the SAG-AFTRA assertion, British actors’ union Fairness dismissed Norwood as not an actress however an “AI instrument.” Emily Blunt, who’s at the moment selling the movie The Smashing Machine , said on a Selection podcast that she discovered Norwood “terrifying” and begged Hollywood to “please cease taking away our human connection.” Different actors, resembling Melissa Barrera and Whoopi Goldberg, have publicly condemned the potential use of the AI actress.

Main expertise businesses have additionally responded, largely shutting down hypothesis that Norwood may very well be a possible shopper. WME chair Richard Weitz said that their company “represents people” at a convention for The Wrap this previous Tuesday. In the meantime, Gersh president Leslie Siebert informed Variety that they had been “not going to be that company” to signal Norwood, whereas acknowledging that AI expertise might be a recurring challenge and that they “have to determine how you can cope with it within the correct approach.”

<img alt="SAG-AFTRA members and supporters chant outside Paramount Studios on day 118 of their strike against the Hollywood studios on November 8, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. " data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/GettyImages-1783162737.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.92151836933969%2C100%2C98.156963261321&w=2400"/> SAG-AFTRA members strike outdoors Paramount Studios on November 8, 2023, in Los Angeles. Mario Tama/Getty Pictures

In an article for NPR, producer and Forbes contributor Charlie Fink, who writes about rising applied sciences within the leisure business, mentioned it’s laborious to think about an AI-generated actress competing with A-list film stars. Given the swiftness of the responses from massive names over the information of Tilly Norwood, it looks like they’d be keen if not geared up to battle again — at the least extra so than rank-and-file actors. The best way the business is heading, it’s background and voice actors who're extra susceptible to AI alternative.

The previous two years, since SAG-AFTRA went on strike whereas negotiating a brand new contract that handled studios’ use of generative AI, have introduced these issues to mild — specifically, “body scanning,” the method by which studios create digital copies of background actors to make use of in extra scenes in an effort to minimize bills. Physique scanning is allowed underneath the brand new SAG-AFTRA contract with actors’ consent and compensation, as is utilizing AI for voice dubbing underneath the identical necessities. On the time the contract was signed in December 2023, although, some SAG members nonetheless felt the brand new clauses round AI weren’t protecting sufficient and contained too many loopholes.

The panic surrounding Norwood is possibly extra of a misdirection than an overreaction, given the AI-fueled dread lingering within the air just lately. Across the similar time that Norwood made headlines, massive tech corporations, like OpenAI and Meta , have rolled out much more AI applied sciences meant to entertain us. This previous week, OpenAI launched its social network app Sora , an infinite scroll of AI-generated slop and brainrot that permits using copyrighted works and human likeness by means of deepfakes. Meta just lately launched the same AI feed known as Vibes .

Total, claiming that an AI-generated avatar is the following Hollywood “it” woman could also be leaping the shark, nevertheless it’s clear that extra AI slop is heading our approach. The leisure business’s hypervigilance to at the least sluggish the stream is perhaps our greatest hope to maintain massive screens slop-free.