{"id":151239,"date":"2026-08-25T23:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/151239\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:01:13","slug":"andrew-garfield-didnt-love-playing-openai-ceo-sam-altman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/151239\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Garfield Didn&#8217;t Love Playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Garfield discussed playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino\u2019s upcoming film \u201cArtificial\u201d \u2014 and why he\u2019s relieved to let go of heavy characters like the tech founder.<\/p>\n<p>The film, written by Simon Rich, chronicles the five-day corporate saga in November 2023 when OpenAI\u2019s board abruptly fired Altman, setting off an employee revolt and a scramble over control of the company before Altman was reinstated as CEO. Garfield stars as Altman, with Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>The project was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/amazon-mgm-drops-luca-guadagnino-artificial-movie-openai-sam-altman\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dropped by Amazon MGM in June<\/a> despite being nearly complete. The decision came just months after Amazon announced a $50 billion investment and partnership with OpenAI, prompting questions about whether the studio\u2019s deepening ties to the company played a role. Neon ultimately acquired the film for worldwide theatrical distribution after other studios, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/artificial-sam-altman-movie-netflix-focus-pass\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Netflix and Focus Features<\/a>, passed.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a class=\"the-wrap-read-more__image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/monica-barbaro-wasnt-concerned-artificial-dropped-at-amazon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Monica-Barbaro.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Monica Barbaro at the New York premiere of &quot;One Night Only&quot; (Photo by Cindy Ord\/WireImage)\"   data-portal-copyright=\"TheWrap\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Garfield noted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/uk\/culture\/film\/a73473247\/andrew-garfield-interview-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an interview published Tuesday with Esquire U.K.<\/a> that he was drawn to the role of Altman after originally being in the running to play Mark Zuckerberg in 2010\u2019s\u00a0\u201cThe Social Network.\u201d He instead played Eduardo Saverin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I think I\u2019ve been fascinated since I missed that opportunity \u2014 though I got given the most amazing opportunity [of playing Eduardo] and wouldn\u2019t have it any other way \u2014 but I definitely feel I\u2019m closer to understanding the drives, the psychology,\u201d Garfield told the outlet. \u201cWith Sam, everything\u2019s a game. It\u2019s a game, and everything gets very, very simple. It\u2019s, \u2018I know I have to win this game, because I am the most \u2018good\u2019 person, and if I don\u2019t win this game, Elon Musk wins this game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know this person, to be clear,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know Sam Altman. I\u2019ve never met him. I was going off of the script and court transcripts and interviews and research, and we were telling a story, but I think anyone who takes on that level of responsibility for a company or a technology that you know is going to do a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity [must have] a certain ability to dissociate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Garfield was excited to step into a role that was a stark contrast to the typically sensitive, empathetic characters he\u2019s become known for, he was more than happy to let go of the OpenAI CEO when the film wrapped. He added that characters like Altman and Hank, the sexual predator he played in Guadagnino\u2019s \u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d are challenging because his \u201cfrom the inside out process\u201d as an actor relies on finding an essence of the character somewhere inside himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat Jung would call \u2018the shadow self\u2019,\u201d he shared, \u201cthe aspects of ourselves that we disown. There\u2019s something there for me to integrate, because I\u2019m so afraid of being it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel grateful to those experiences of playing those people,\u201d he concluded. \u201cBut I don\u2019t love it. Ultimately, I\u2019m like, \u2018Thank God that\u2019s over.\u2019 I felt that way with Sam and with Hank. Because I much prefer at least trying to be community-minded, a good friend. I love being a cozy guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cArtificial\u201d does not have an official release day just yet.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a class=\"the-wrap-read-more__image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/neon-closes-on-luca-guadagninos-artificial\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Luca-Guadagnino-Sam-Altman.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Luca Guadagnino Sam Altman\"   data-portal-copyright=\"TheWrap\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Garfield discussed playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino\u2019s upcoming film \u201cArtificial\u201d \u2014 and why he\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8009,43249,157,370],"class_list":["post-151239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-andrew-garfield","tag-luca-guadagnino","tag-openai","tag-sam-altman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}