Artificial intelligence (AI) has been featured consistently in the news for three years now, with every company implementing new AI features. These updates seemed to be minor updates, nothing like a whole human being, right? But then, Tilly Norwood came into the picture: an AI actress who is catching the eye of Hollywood executives all over the film scene.
How far will this AI actress go? Will it win awards and roles that human actors deserve? Looking to the next generation of actors, actresses, and filmmakers can be helpful in answering these questions as well as better understanding the opinions surrounding AI in the film industry.
When it comes to the situation of Tilly Norwood, Lillian Engelsgjerd ’27 expressed her frustrations about the creation of an AI-generated actress.
“It’s taking away opportunities from actors who, like me, are young and talented, who normally don’t have a lot of opportunities in this business. It’s really hard for people to get opportunities in this business, and I think the addition of this AI actress is just making everything even more competitive,” Engelsgjerd said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.
Housley felt a similar way, however, her outrage wasn’t just for actresses in general, but for the background actors. From first-hand experience working as an extra in the Hollywood blockbuster “Twisters” starring Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar Jones, Housley knows what it is like to be an extra on a set. They are the first ones on set and last ones to leave. Extras have long hours, no promises their scenes will be kept, and the knowledge that they can be replaced within a second. All of this is before AI has even been added to the picture. Now that Tilly Norwood can be copied and pasted across the screen, extras are on the path to being disrespected forever.
“It’s not going to be Florence Pugh losing her job. It’s not going to be Timothée Chalamet. They are still going to be okay in their positions. It’s going to be the entry level acting positions, which are your background extras and your small feature parts and your small lines. And those are such good experiences for young actors to get,” Maggie Housley ’27 said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.
With the job market in every field already getting scarier and scarier, it’s even more terrifying to hear that actresses trying to get into the business will have an even harder time now because they have to compete with a machine. The machine has no limits. This leads to actresses having to stretch their morals in order to get the jobs they wish for, which can lead to unsafe environments on sets — a place that is already exploitative in many areas.
Actors, even if they are not directly affected by this, are also outraged.
“I am more outraged on behalf of the community at large, even if it doesn’t, at this moment, directly affect me, the way AI is discrediting the work being done by actresses and artists is terrible,” Gavin Webb ‘26.
However, Webb does find areas in which AI can be useful in leveling the playing field for actors.
“I can’t wear contacts, and if AI can help me have colorful eyes for a film, then I think that is okay. But AI overall should only be used in acting to advance something that cannot be learned,” Webb said. “Accents, for instance, [are] something that I don’t think should be made with AI, because that can be learned, but since time is an issue AI has been unfortunately used in that context.”
St. Olaf Film Production Society Members Noa Marohl ’29 and Woody Hewett ’27, have less love for the technology in the film industry.
“It’s very telling that this first AI acting individual of some kind is a woman. Women are already so disregarded in the film industry, and now with Tilly, who knows what will happen?” Hewett said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.
When asked by The Olaf Messenger how she felt about the argument for AI that — since actors, actresses, and artists give homages to or even copy other works — they are doing the same thing that AI is doing, Marohl said, “I think it all goes back to artists being human … that always creates something new in a way. So I think I understand why people are saying that, but I think intentionality is the biggest part about it.”
The concept of AI can seem scary at times when characters like Tilly Norwood are staring creatives in the face, but it’s good to know that young artists wish to stand up against these artificial forces.
