Hollywood’s Salvation or the Nail in Cinema’s Coffin?
A new star has been introduced to Hollywood. She’s young. She’s gorgeous. She seems to be very talented and promises to adapt easily to any kind of acting role. She’s also not human. “Tilly Norwood”, the first ever AI-generated actress, is on the scene, and people are worried that Hollywood will never be the same.
Tilly Norwood was created by the producer and former actress Eline Van der Velden and her team. The character was unveiled in September of 2025 during the Zurich Film Festival, and almost immediately triggered unrest among the acting community. Dozens of actors criticized the character, and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) does not recognize it as a legitimate actress.
According to a Wall Street Journal article published online on Dec. 6 of 2025, Van der Velden was not expecting the amount of backlash against her actress. Van der Velden maintains that Tilly Norwood is not supposed to replace real actresses. Instead, she is supposed to become the star of a new genre of AI-created films.
However, according to the same article, Van der Velden has signed nondisclosure agreements for hybrid films featuring both real actors and her creation. (Though, according to a CBS News article published online on Dec. 7, 2025, Van der Velden said her firm had said no to any offers featuring Norwood and real actors.)
One of the acting industry’s chief sources of concern regarding the advent of Tilly Norwood is that AI “actors” will replace their human counterparts. Despite Van der Velden’s insistence that Tilly Norwood does not mean the end of Hollywood, actors see how easily the industry could become a system where the only humans involved are the ones typing instructions into a computer.
Using AI is likely cheaper and certainly easier than going through the painstaking process of casting actors, designing props and costumes, shooting scenes and editing all the components of a film.
Simplicity is not the only attractive feature of using AI actors. By using AI, a producer could perfectly customize the appearance of his star without worrying about whether “the perfect face” could also act.
Moreover, directors would no longer have to worry about star actors throwing temper tantrums, or demanding elaborate perks in their contracts or rejecting roles altogether. Anne Hathaway will be much more selective about her acting conditions than Tilly Norwood.
Another concern, one that might be more pertinent to film viewers than to actors, is that film lovers simply could not relate to an AI-generated star. Though Van der Velden has apparently claimed that audiences are more interested in the plot of a film than if the actors are AI-generated or not, part of what makes watching an excellent movie so enjoyable is the knowledge that the people on my screen are just that, people.
Not only can I, as an outsider, admire their incredible acting talent, but I can also substitute myself for the hero or heroine in my own imagination. I can wonder how I would act, what I would do differently, how long I would survive.
The entire film takes on a reality because I can associate with the humanity of the characters through the humanity of the actors. It can become a cathartic experience, a cleansing of emotion through the arts. All this would be lost with an AI-generated protagonist.
If Tilly Norwood were to play Jo March in “Little Women”, she might appear to be struggling with the loss of a sister or the trials of leaving behind childhood, but inside, there would be nothing. When Winona Ryder or Saoirse Ronan play that role, they draw from a personal understanding of loss and grief, from their own memories of exiting childhood.
An AI actress cannot fear death, or fall in love or forgive an enemy. An AI actress cannot know failure or despair. These are all essentially human traits. They can be mimicked, but never replicated.
Even if the technical result is the same, audiences will feel the difference. They’ll feel the inherent lack of a soul.