EXCLUSIVE: When actress and technologist Eline Van der Velden sat down for a Deadline-moderated panel at the Zurich Summit in September, she never could have anticipated the intense global reaction that Tilly Norwood, the first AI-created actress from her fledgling AI talent studio Xicoia, would spark across the world.
The 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.
Speaking 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 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.
First reported by Deadline under the headline “Talent Agents Circle AI Actress Tilly Norwood,” the development sparked uproar in Hollywood and condemnation across the wider media and entertainment world as the story went viral.
Whoopi Goldberg, Emily Blunt and Natasha Lyonne were among the stars expressing their outrage, while Ryan Reynolds poked fun at Tilly in his new Mint Mobile ad.
More ominously, given that AI was a sticking point in the 2023 actors strike, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement saying it believed “creativity … should remain, human-centered.” Hollywood agency WME also weighed in, saying it would not represent AI actors. Images of Tilly on her social media handles were splashed across major news outlets all over the world.
One 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 “super ethical” and “transparent” process with a team of 15 humans behind her creation.
She also lays out how AI can be used as a “force for good” 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.
Further, Van der Velden debunks any notion that Tilly’s launch was a “stunt” and confirms that yes, she’s still having conversations with talent agents for Tilly.
DEADLINE: Could 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?
ELINE VAN DER VELDEN: It’s been crazy, I’m 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’s what she was built for. For that to come true has been a funny self-fulfilling prophecy … 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.
DEADLINE: So how do you envision this technology fitting into the entertainment world going forward?
VAN DER VELDEN: 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’s where she’ll 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’s the environmental element. It’s an 80% to 90% carbon footprint reduction if you use AI for certain shots. It’s also safer in some instances. Xicoia is really an extension into the AI universe and AI world. And that’s where Tilly lives and that’s where she should stay.
DEADLINE: Did you have an inkling that the revelation you were talking to talent agents for Tilly would spark such a furore?
VAN DER VELDEN: We didn’t think this was so controversial because CAA signed CGI character Lil Miquela [aka Miquela Sousa] in 2020. In hindsight, the tech has come a long way since and Tilly looks a lot more real than Miquela. It’s a very different proposition. When 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’s going to be exciting. We wanted to build a character in the vein of Lara Croft.
DEADLINE: Do you feel like Tilly still needs talent representation after her unplanned viral launch?
VAN DER VELDEN: She has become a lot more famous than she was before … We’re looking at what we’re going to do with her next now that we’re in this different position.
DEADLINE: When you said talent agents, who were you talking about? The big Hollywood agencies like CAA, UTA, WME?
VAN DER VELDEN: I can’t say specifically but I will say there are lots of agencies that are interested.
DEADLINE: Are these reps also looking after real actors?
VAN DER VELDEN: We would ideally find someone who is going to represent AI characters. That will be a job of the future so that’s what we are looking for.
DEADLINE: Have any of talent agents circling Tilly backed away because of the backlash?
VAN DER VELDEN: There are so many that we’re talking to. It’s not one specific one that’s pulled away or come back into the picture, and we’re involved in a lot of other conversations … As much as there was a backlash, we have been absolutely inundated with requests of top talent. We’re 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’s a positive thing. This AI renaissance is about thinking outside of the box.
DEADLINE: Some news outlets and organizations in Hollywood have dismissed this whole thing as a stunt, claiming you’re a performance artist like, say, Sacha Baron Cohen.
VAN DER VELDEN: 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’ve 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. There are so many AI actors out there. I couldn’t imagine that this would have made such a splash as it did.
But also, I’m upset that we upset people, because that was never the intention to upset the acting community. I’m 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’m 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’s a new art form like AI, doesn’t 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’t mean we don’t do the old art.
DEADLINE: How did you create Tilly?
VAN DER VELDEN: We spent almost six months thinking about her, iterating her, creating her, making a different version of her, changing little things about her. It’s been such a long, ongoing process … 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’s possible. We 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.
DEADLINE: What specific AI tools did you use to create Tilly?
VAN DER VELDEN: We used a variety of tools, and some are better than others for certain things. In the language-based processing, you’ve got Perplexity, Open AI, Gemini, DeepSeek. There are different ones. You’ll use DeepSeek if you’re using numbers, while OpenAI and ChatGPT tend to be very creative. We’ll try different things out on different things for the right projects. For 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, “Wow.” That’s when we knew we had the right one.
DEADLINE: Why did you make her a young, British actress?
VAN DER VELDEN: 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.
We’re in a good position because we’re under a lot of stress with budgets, while the weather’s not very good, so we tend to be more creative. There’s 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’s create a super British character. That was my original idea. But we have always been super ethical and transparent. We’re not trying to hide anything and we haven’t built Tilly off of anyone’s likeness illegally. We are trying to be a force for good and for the industry.
DEADLINE: You’ve said that Particle6 is working with a lot of traditional media and entertainment outfits but that you can’t reveal their identities because you’re under an NDA. Why do you think companies and individuals are so cagey?
VAN DER VELDEN: They’re all scared of the backlash. Let’s 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’t want to replace them. That’s 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’s a really important thing to set straight. We have been approached for those types of opportunities but that’s 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’s by helping them use some scenes with AI. We’re 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.
It’s 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 The Brutalist, 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.
When AI is used, film companies should say something like “This film uses some AI technologies,” just like we used to say, “This is a historical reconstruction.” 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.
DEADLINE: What’s next then? Will you be rolling out new characters for Xicoia to join this universe?
VAN DER VELDEN: 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.
DEADLINE: How far along are you with other characters?
VAN DER VELDEN: We’ve got a few in the in the making but none are ready for release. It takes a long time to get something I’m happy with.
DEADLINE: How many people do you have working for you at Particle6?
VAN DER VELDEN: We have 15 people all in house and we are growing very fast. We’ll 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’s about taking the best, most interesting projects with really talented people. That’s what we’re 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.
We 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.
DEADLINE: It seems like you’re 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?
VAN DER VELDEN: It’s a whole new space … 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’s why industry acceptance is really important. This tech is here and it’s going to stay so how are we going to work with it going forwards in an ethical manner?
When it comes to digital twins, people should have explicit compensation for their likeness in any program. That’s why we created an original character for our AI genre. We’re not using anyone else’s 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’s a computer-generated character.
DEADLINE: There’s 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?
VAN DER VELDEN: There are lot of misconceptions out there about what AI does, and a lot of people don’t even know how it works. Humanity is always built on the shoulders of the humanity that’s come before. With 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 … and the court cases that are going on right now should be settled.
What happens after it’s been trained is a completely different thing. It then works on mathematical, statistical probabilities of pixel placements in an image. It’s not like I’m taking your eye and your mouth and amalgamating these things together. It’s 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’s on a pixelated level that this creation happens.
It 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 … There’s humanity behind it. Tilly has 15 humans behind her … There is also a lot of data that goes into this creation right from her age to her name to where she is from. That’s why even Ryan Reynolds couldn’t find a Tilly Norwood – he found a Natalie Norwood – because there’s no competition with the name Tilly Norwood. A lot of clever stuff goes into this.
DEADLINE: What’s the next step for legislation on AI and how do you see yourself being a part of it?
VAN DER VELDEN: I would love to be a leader in that space, to help set what our industry standards are going to be. So it’s not allowed to use someone’s likeness without their explicit consent and fair compensation and that if we’re creating original characters, they need to be created with loads of human work so that they have copyright in them.
DEADLINE: What would you say to those people who are worried their jobs will become obsolete because of AI?
VAN DER VELDEN: 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’re 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’s going to be phenomenal.
DEADLINE: But lots of people in these sectors are losing work at the moment.
VAN DER VELDEN: 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’t 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.
DEADLINE: What about young, working actors looking to get small parts on films to build their career up? Not everyone becomes a star right away.
VAN DER VELDEN: Acting is a really, really tough gig. It’s very difficult. You’re putting yourself out there all of the time. But I do think there’ll 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’re old and can’t 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.
But 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’re still going to film with actors. I want to see real actors on screen. I don’t think AI characters will be in that space – it’s not going to move that fast.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.