{"id":362476,"date":"2025-11-07T15:44:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362476\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:44:16","slug":"tilly-norwood-creator-on-backlash-says-more-ai-actors-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362476\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilly Norwood Creator On Backlash, Says More AI Actors Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE:\u00a0<\/strong>When actress and technologist Eline Van der Velden<\/a> sat down for a Deadline-moderated panel at the Zurich Summit<\/a> in September, she never could have anticipated the intense global reaction that Tilly Norwood<\/a>, the first AI<\/a>-created actress from her fledgling AI talent studio Xicoia<\/a>, would spark across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe polished brunette AI creation with a girl-next-door feel had been soft launched to little fanfare over the summer and had a low key presence on social networks until then.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking at the intimate, industry-focused event at the Dolder Grand Hotel, Van der Velden took to the stage to give a presentation on her decade-old AI production studio Particle6<\/a> as well as its new Xicoia offshoot, before revealing in a panel conversation that she was in talks with talent agents over representation for the AI actress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFirst reported by Deadline under the headline \u201cTalent Agents Circle AI Actress Tilly Norwood<\/a>,\u201d the development sparked uproar in Hollywood<\/a> and condemnation across the wider media and entertainment world as the story went viral.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhoopi Goldberg, Emily Blunt and Natasha Lyonne were among the stars expressing their outrage, while Ryan Reynolds poked fun at Tilly <\/a>in his new Mint Mobile ad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Creator Of Controversial AI Actress Tilly Norwood Puts Out Statement Following Backlash: \u201cShe Is Not A Replacement For A Human Being\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMore ominously, given that AI was a sticking point in the 2023 actors strike, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement <\/a>saying it believed \u201ccreativity \u2026 should remain, human-centered.\u201d\u00a0Hollywood agency WME also weighed in, saying\u00a0it would not represent AI actors. Images of Tilly on her social media handles were splashed across major news outlets all over the world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne month after the backlash, Van der Velden sits down with Deadline for an exclusive first interview to set the record straight. In the wide-ranging conversation, the trained physicist, who first stepped into the AI space by combining her experience in physics and the arts, explains the process behind creating Tilly and stresses she was made through a \u201csuper ethical\u201d and \u201ctransparent\u201d process with a team of 15 humans behind her creation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also lays out how AI can be used as a \u201cforce for good\u201d to greenlight projects that are currently struggling to get off the ground thanks to shrinking budgets and a more risk-averse sector, but also acknowledges that the film and TV industries need to rally together to establish guardrails sooner rather than later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Equity Joins Tilly Norwood Backlash: \u201cA Computer Program Has Created Something Fundamentally Disconnected From The Craft Of Acting\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFurther, Van der Velden debunks any notion that Tilly\u2019s launch was a \u201cstunt\u201d and confirms that yes, she\u2019s still having conversations with talent agents for Tilly.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Could you have imagined that the story would take off in the way it did after your presentation and conversation with us at the Zurich Summit?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tELINE VAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s been crazy, I\u2019m not going to lie. I could never have imagined this story would blow up as much as it did. When I first envisioned Tilly, I did imagine global stardom for her, that\u2019s what she was built for. For that to come true has been a funny self-fulfilling prophecy \u2026 I think it showed off our quality, and a lot of people were amazed by that, and that the quality of Tilly sparked a conversation that needed to be had around the world about how is this tech going to fit into this industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0So how do you envision this technology fitting into the entertainment world going forward?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>I feel strongly that there are three genres: animation, traditional live action and the AI genre. Tilly was always meant to be in her AI genre, and that\u2019s where she\u2019ll stay. I also want to be clear about our two different businesses. Particle6 is there to be a force for good in the traditional filmmaking space. We help reduce budgets so projects can enhance creativity with real actors. Plus, there\u2019s the environmental element. It\u2019s an 80% to 90% carbon footprint reduction if you use AI for certain shots. It\u2019s also safer in some instances. Xicoia is really an extension into the AI universe and AI world. And that\u2019s where Tilly lives and that\u2019s where she should stay.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Did you have an inkling that the revelation you were talking to talent agents for Tilly would spark such a furore?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We didn\u2019t think this was so controversial because CAA signed CGI character Lil Miquela [aka\u00a0Miquela Sousa] in 2020. In hindsight, the tech has come a long way since and Tilly looks a lot more real than Miquela. It\u2019s a very different proposition.\u00a0When we said we wanted Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson, we meant the Scarlett Johansson of the AI genre. We were thinking that in that AI world, she could do with an agent who would get her brand deals and roles in the AI films that are going to be made. A huge creative renaissance is going to happen in that genre. It\u2019s going to be exciting. We wanted to build a character in the vein of Lara Croft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Do you feel like Tilly still needs talent representation after her unplanned viral launch?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>She has become a lot more famous than she was before \u2026 We\u2019re looking at what we\u2019re going to do with her next now that we\u2019re in this different position.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTilly Norwood<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy of Particle6 and Xicoia<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0When you said talent agents, who were you talking about? The big Hollywood agencies like CAA, UTA, WME?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:<\/strong>\u00a0I can\u2019t say specifically but I will say there are lots of agencies that are interested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Are these reps also looking after real actors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We would ideally find someone who is going to represent AI characters. That will be a job of the future so that\u2019s what we are looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Have any of talent agents circling Tilly backed away because of the backlash?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>There are so many that we\u2019re talking to. It\u2019s not one specific one that\u2019s pulled away or come back into the picture, and we\u2019re involved in a lot of other conversations \u2026 As much as there was a backlash, we have been absolutely inundated with requests of top talent. We\u2019re talking to Academy Award-winning writers, directors and actors who want to explore this space to see where this can go for them. Everybody wants to have a play and that\u2019s a positive thing.\u00a0This AI renaissance is about thinking outside of the box.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Some news outlets and organizations in Hollywood have dismissed this whole thing as a stunt, claiming you\u2019re a performance artist like, say, Sacha Baron Cohen.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>It definitely was not a stunt. We were speaking at a very small film event on a panel at the Zurich Summit. I just wanted to show the people in the room what we do. I knew you guys were in the room and we\u2019ve had plenty of articles. We had an article out with you about Tilly and Xicoia the week prior and another article about her out in the summer. This story had been around for a while.\u00a0There are so many AI actors out there. I couldn\u2019t imagine that this would have made such a splash as it did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut also, I\u2019m upset that we upset people, because that was never the intention to upset the acting community. I\u2019m an actor myself and I feel a real kinship with all actors. It is not my creative pursuit to take their jobs away in any shape or form. I\u2019m sympathizing and feel upset they were upset. I hope that I can make them feel better by saying that is not the intention. That is not what Tilly was made for. And just because there\u2019s a new art form like AI, doesn\u2019t mean that the old art form becomes obsolete, right? We still paint, we still write, we still do photography. Just because you can now do those things digitally doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t do the old art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0How did you create Tilly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We spent almost six months thinking about her, iterating her, creating her, making a different version of her, changing little things about her. It\u2019s been such a long, ongoing process \u2026 There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of people working with multiple different tools to get her to look the way she did. We wanted her to be super realistic to show the world where the tech is at and what\u2019s possible.\u00a0We also wanted her to resonate with a certain audience. Her look was very specific and that was a very creative pursuit, with a lot of humans working on it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0What specific AI tools did you use to create Tilly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We used a variety of tools, and some are better than others for certain things. In the language-based processing, you\u2019ve got Perplexity, Open AI, Gemini, DeepSeek. There are different ones. You\u2019ll use DeepSeek if you\u2019re using numbers, while OpenAI and ChatGPT tend to be very creative. We\u2019ll try different things out on different things for the right projects.\u00a0For Tilly, we wanted to look at what would resonate globally. We ended up with an airbrushed version of her and then we went into a more photorealistic phase, which we tweaked and would decide things such as where we would put her freckles. There were so many tweaks before we finally got her. We did some testing with the general population and industry people. Everyone was like, \u201cWow.\u201d That\u2019s when we knew we had the right one.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0Why did you make her a young, British actress?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN<\/strong>: I came to Britain when I was 14 to study musical theater because Britain is the creative powerhouse of the world. This is still the case. With the new AI era that is about to happen, I would like Britain to become an absolute frontrunner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWe\u2019re in a good position because we\u2019re under a lot of stress with budgets, while the weather\u2019s not very good, so we tend to be more creative. There\u2019s a lot of AI creativity happening in Britain and we have such a great export of actors. We have such incredible talent here and we train them up incredibly. I want the AI talent of the future to also be British, so I thought let\u2019s create a super British character. That was my original idea. But we have always been super ethical and transparent. We\u2019re not trying to hide anything and we haven\u2019t built Tilly off of anyone\u2019s likeness illegally. We are trying to be a force for good and for the industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0You\u2019ve said that Particle6 is working with a lot of traditional media and entertainment outfits but that you can\u2019t reveal their identities because you\u2019re under an NDA. Why do you think companies and individuals are so cagey?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>They\u2019re all scared of the backlash. Let\u2019s be real, nobody wants that backlash. I totally empathize the backlash. I get that people are worried they are going to be replaced but we don\u2019t want to replace them. That\u2019s not the purpose of it. Right now, there are less roles out there, and I truly empathize with that. But Tilly is not going to take your job and that\u2019s a really important thing to set straight. We have been approached for those types of opportunities but that\u2019s not what we want to do with Tilly, and we have not taken those opportunities. We want to help more people get into work in the traditional space with Particle6 and that\u2019s by helping them use some scenes with AI. We\u2019re getting more projects greenlit, more people into jobs and more actors out there working. That is the purpose of what Particle6 is doing and those are the projects under NDA.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s baby steps to get the audience ready. Initially, people will use it in the CGI field and then it will be used in the way it was in\u00a0The Brutalist<\/a>, with an accent. And then it will be a crash scene or a certain shot and then there will be press releases for what they have used AI for, like they have in many projects up until now. That would be transparent.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen AI is used, film companies should say something like \u201cThis film uses some AI technologies,\u201d just like we used to say, \u201cThis is a historical reconstruction.\u201d I think very soon, a lot of films will use AI to make certain scenes happen on projects that might not have happened at all.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0What\u2019s next then? Will you be rolling out new characters for Xicoia to join this universe?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes. The plan is to create 40 very diverse characters to build her whole universe and to play in this AI genre with a whole new cast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0How far along are you with other characters?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019ve got a few in the in the making but none are ready for release. It takes a long time to get something I\u2019m happy with.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0How many people do you have working for you at Particle6?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>We have 15 people all in house and we are growing very fast. We\u2019ll be tripling our workforce in the next month. We were already headed in that direction before the story of Tilly took off. The inbound work is enormous. Everybody wants to play with us, and we can only handle so many projects, so it\u2019s about taking the best, most interesting projects with really talented people. That\u2019s what we\u2019re interested in. It still requires a lot of humans to do the work but there is a skill shortage in the knowledge of the tools and where they can be applied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWe want to play a part in training up the workforce of the future, and we are working really closely with government bodies like ScreenSkills to help train the workforce up. We think a lot of people from the traditional filmmaking and storytelling space will move to the AI space because being a storyteller in a hugely valuable skill. The AI space needs storytellers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0It seems like you\u2019re taking a more ethical approach by turning down offers under which Tilly would replace a human actor, but not everyone will hold the line. How does the media and entertainment world navigate that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s a whole new space \u2026 the change, the guidelines and the industry standards should come from our creative industries, as opposed to it being imposed on us by the tech industries. That\u2019s why industry acceptance is really important. This tech is here and it\u2019s going to stay so how are we going to work with it going forwards in an ethical manner?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it comes to digital twins, people should have explicit compensation for their likeness in any program. That\u2019s why we created an original character for our AI genre. We\u2019re not using anyone else\u2019s likeness without fair compensation or explicit consent. Equally, I think that Tilly should also be protected in her likeness, her copyright and her creation as any other computer-generated character should be. And I agree with SAG that she\u2019s a computer-generated character.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTilly Norwood<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy of Particle6 and Xicoia<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0There\u2019s a lot of concern among professionals across the creative and media industries that generative AI tools are essentially stealing their work by scraping content available on the Internet. What do you say to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>There are lot of misconceptions out there about what AI does, and a lot of people don\u2019t even know how it works. Humanity is always built on the shoulders of the humanity that\u2019s come before.\u00a0With AI, it trains on not thousands but billions and billions of amounts of data that has come before it. That data should rightfully be paid for \u2026 and the court cases that are going on right now should be settled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat happens after it\u2019s been trained is a completely different thing. It then works on mathematical, statistical probabilities of pixel placements in an image. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m taking your eye and your mouth and amalgamating these things together. It\u2019s trained to what a human being looks like. Just like you and me are built out of the same atoms, every image is built out of the same pixels. It\u2019s on a pixelated level that this creation happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also has so much human input. We believe in humans working with AI every at step on the production chain. We have AI writers working with AI producers working with AI production coordinators down to production managers working with budgets and more. We have DoPs working with AI all the way down to the finish line \u2026\u00a0There\u2019s humanity behind it. Tilly has 15 humans behind her \u2026\u00a0\u00a0There is also a lot of data that goes into this creation right from her age to her name to where she is from. That\u2019s why even Ryan Reynolds couldn\u2019t find a Tilly Norwood \u2013 he found a Natalie Norwood \u2013 because there\u2019s no competition with the name Tilly Norwood. A lot of clever stuff goes into this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0What\u2019s the next step for legislation on AI and how do you see yourself being a part of it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>I would love to be a leader in that space, to help set what our industry standards are going to be. So it\u2019s not allowed to use someone\u2019s likeness without their explicit consent and fair compensation and that if we\u2019re creating original characters, they need to be created with loads of human work so that they have copyright in them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0What would you say to those people who are worried their jobs will become obsolete because of AI?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN<\/strong>: In 2016, they said radiologists would become obsolete because AI can do the tech much better than radiologists can. What ended up happening is so much tech went into radiology that they were able to scan more people. As a result, they found out more problems in patients and more radiologists were needed to observe the AI roles and to work with the people. So, this is the creative renaissance. We\u2019re going to see more projects going into greenlight. More films are going to get made. This industry is going to have an enormous boom. It\u2019s going to be phenomenal.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0But lots of people in these sectors are losing work at the moment.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>I understand that, but the fact is the industry changes. It does happen and jobs do change. Our jobs are not what they were. In the 1900s, none of our jobs existed. I can\u2019t protect everyone from that. But what I will say is that the industry has been stuck for a little bit and this might help unlock that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:\u00a0What about young, working actors looking to get small parts on films to build their career up? Not everyone becomes a star right away.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVAN DER VELDEN:\u00a0<\/strong>Acting is a really, really tough gig. It\u2019s very difficult. You\u2019re putting yourself out there all of the time. But I do think there\u2019ll be changes. We have had young actors approach us about wanting to be part of this new genre, the AI genre, asking if we can use their likeness. We get a lot of requests, from top actors to new starters. With the top actors, maybe they\u2019re old and can\u2019t come to set anymore and they would like a digital twin of themselves, obviously with explicit consent and compensation. We can do that and help them with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut also, for young actors who want to be in an AI genre film, we can make that work as well. There is going to be this creative renaissance. There is going to be a change. I think, the traditional film and TV genre will carry on for quite awhile, for a long time, maybe forever, as its own genre. And I think we\u2019re still going to film with actors. I want to see real actors on screen. I don\u2019t think AI characters will be in that space \u2013 it\u2019s not going to move that fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview was edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE:\u00a0When actress and technologist Eline Van der Velden sat down for a Deadline-moderated panel at the Zurich Summit…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,175819,65043,16994,158,137868,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-362476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-eline-van-der-velden","11":"tag-particle6","12":"tag-techline","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-tilly-norwood","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115509193950213555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}