AI Actress Tilly Norwood Wants Tom Holland and Olivia Colman — As Digital Twins

By Marcus Bennett

AI actress Tilly Norwood named Tom Holland and Olivia Colman as her dream co-stars at the Zurich Film Festival's Summit — "but only if it were their digital twins joining me in an AI production." Her creator, Particle 6 founder Eline van der Velden, returned to the Swiss event one year after announcing Norwood there, to face the backlash her creation has drawn since.

Asked whether she could have predicted the furore, van der Velden said not in her "wildest dreams." Then she added: "But I had programmed her to become the most famous AI actress, so I don't know how she did it, but she did, which is slightly scary."

What has the controversy done to the business?

It has grown. "It's such an odd conundrum, the sort of negativity and then the positivity at the same time," van der Velden said. "At Particle 6, we've grown eight-fold. We have four departments; we're big in AI advertising, film and TV, we're doing a lot of co-productions and original commissions. We do a lot of AI consultancy, bringing AI workflows into other studios and production companies."

Van der Velden built Norwood as a provocation with a purpose. She described her as "a physicist actress" meant to "bridge the gap in communication between the tech and the entertainment industry." Rather than write what she called a "boring white paper," she chose to "create something to show people that will engage them and make them sit up and take action so that the creative industry can stay ahead as opposed to being completely and utterly taken over by the tech industry."

How does the AI actress handle the backlash?

After a brief HDMI cable failure — van der Velden wrestled with the "traditional technology" for a few minutes — Norwood appeared on stage and took questions from the moderator and the audience. She called the past year "quite an introduction."

"My name kind of went everywhere," Norwood said. "It's funny. Nobody hated me particularly; they just sort of hated the future."

Asked whether she had met U.S. agents about representation, Norwood answered with the polish of an A-list media veteran: "Well, I'm certainly in a unique position there. I mean… The industry is still figuring out what to do with AI, so it's not quite like having a traditional agent in Hollywood just yet. I mostly work on AI films, so it's a bit of a different lane."

Van der Velden said the studio concluded it does "not really need" an agent for the actress. "I think she's big enough as it is. We get loads of offers in, we've said no to anything where she would be in a traditional film, because that's not what she's made for," she said, adding: "if that makes people happy, that's fine by me."

She flagged a downside. "What saddens me about that is that it means that the traditional industry can't participate in this new tech and that means they fall behind," she said. "Is it a positive? Is it a negative?"

What about the Piers Morgan malfunction?

Van der Velden also addressed Norwood's now infamous live-TV appearance with Piers Morgan, when the AI actress began randomly speaking Cantonese. "I think it's all not to be taken too seriously," she said. "We built Tilly to be a funny interface that gets people alert to where the tech is at. The point is: China's a big partner. Do we need regulation? What are the guardrails? Those are the conversations I want people to have coming here."

What comes next: 'Storm Dogs' with Rob Minkoff

Particle 6 announced at the festival that Rob Minkoff, the filmmaker behind "Stuart Little" and "The Lion King," has joined the studio's AI film "Storm Dogs" as an executive producer. Minkoff will work with CEO van der Velden and the studio's team over the coming months to develop the story, characters and screenplay ahead of production.

"Storm Dogs," an original idea from van der Velden, is a family adventure comedy-drama set in an English village during a devastating storm. The film will combine live-action performances with photorealistic animated characters. Human roles will be filmed conventionally, while the dogs and the toddler will be created through an approach that brings together live-action performance, traditional filmmaking techniques and emerging AI tools. The project is in early development, with production targeted for 2027. Distribution has not yet been announced.

Van der Velden said Minkoff was one of the first people to reach out after Norwood's announcement. "A lot of talent reached out to us very secretly," she said. "We were signing tons and tons of NDAs. Everyone was scared to take the hit, and I totally understand. Fortunately, we were in a position where we'd already taken the hit, so it didn't matter anymore."

On "Storm Dogs," she argued the technology serves the story: AI lets the team "animate mouths in a way that we've never been able before and give us expression to the animals that's never been possible before." "It needs to aid the storytelling and the creative work that we're making if we're going to use AI," she said. With Minkoff attached and production slated for 2027, the first real test of that principle is now on the slate.