Like most young, aspiring actors, she has an Insta account, a sizzle reel, and a host of talent agents interested in signing her up, but actress Tilly Norwood isn’t all she seems – she’s not even real.

Norwood, an AI-generated ‘actress’, has ignited a fresh firestorm in Hollywood, drawing backlash from stars, filmmakers, and unions alike, and condemnation of her creator, Dutch comedian Eline Van der Velden and her AI ‘talent studio’ Xicoia.

First appearing in a short film called AI Commissioner, Norwood is ‘100% AI-generated’ and has already been superimposed onto Graham Norton’s famous red couch, with der Velden reportedly saying she wants the AI actress to become the ‘next Scarlett Johansson’.

However, A-listers, including Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne and Whoopi Goldberg, have criticised the creation, while the US media union SAG-AFTRA released a statement strongly opposed to what it called the ‘replacement of human performers by synthetics’. 

“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers – without permission or compensation,” said the union.

“It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. 

“It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ – it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardising performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

Aiming to stay ahead of studios eyeing AI talent, SAG-AFTRA also warned signatory producers that they can’t use synthetic performers without meeting union terms, specifically giving notice and entering bargaining before any AI actor is deployed.

The issue of ‘stolen performances’ goes to the heart of the debate, a continuation from the most recent wave of writers’ strikes, when the Writers Guild of America demanded that CEOs at top production firms like Warner Bros, Paramount, Disney, Netflix, and Amazon, take legal action against any tech company using their members’ work to train AI models.

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With the release of the twenty-something facsimile Norwood, further legal action could well be on the cards. Actors’ union Equity, for example, has called for human artistry to be ‘protected at all costs’, and said it is already supporting a member who believes her image and performance were included in Norwood’s creation without permission.

Defending the AI actress, der Velden said in a statement posted to X that Norwood was not a replacement for a human being, but rather a piece of art in itself.

“Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories,” der Velden wrote.

“Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship…It takes time, skill, and iteration to bring such a character to life. She represents experimentation, not substitution.”