Tilly Norwood, a London-based “actress” with about 40,000 Instagram followers, isn’t real. She is an AI-generated character created by Xicoia, the artificial intelligence division of production company Particle6.
Eline Van der Velden, the Dutch producer who founded Particle6, unveiled Norwood at the Zurich Film Festival in September and is currently seeking an agent to represent her. The move has already generated strong reactions across Hollywood.
Actress Emily Blunt, upon learning about Norwood during a podcast recording with Variety, voiced alarm.
“Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary,” Blunt said. “Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.”
SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors and media professionals, also condemned the creation of AI 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,” the union stated. “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.”
Facing backlash, Van der Velden defended the project in a post on Norwood’s Instagram account.
“She is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work, a piece of art,” she wrote. “Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.”
Still, human actors remain wary, especially as AI-generated video technology becomes more advanced with tools like OpenAI’s newly released Sora 2. SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America have both pushed for contractual protections to safeguard performers from being replaced by synthetic actors.
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“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,” the union warned.
