Gersh President Vows Not to Sign Tilly Norwood Amid Claims the AI Actress Will Soon Have Representation: ‘We’re Not Going to Be That Agency’

For months, Eline Van der Velden, founder of AI production studio Particle6, had been taking meetings around town and introducing her ingenue, Tilly Norwood. She made no secret of her hopes for the 20-something-looking brunette. “We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman,” Van der Velden told Broadcast International in July.

But the full-blown panic over Particle6’s first creation didn’t hit until this past weekend, when Van der Velden talked about Norwood and her screen debut in the comedy sketch “AI Commissioner” during a panel at the Zurich Film Festival.

“When we first launched Tilly, people were like, ‘What’s that?’ And now we’re going to be announcing which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months,” Van der Velden said.

Was her prediction a bit of bluster? Or has Tilly, who demonstrates her ability to cry in the “Studio” knockoff, already sparked a multi-agency feeding frenzy to sign her?

Gersh Agency president Leslie Siebert, who represents such bona fide next-gen stars as Jacob Elordi, calls the Tilly phenomenon “frightening” and says she would not be surprised if the AI creation lands at an agency. 

“But we’re not going to be that agency,” Siebert says. “That said, it’s going to keep coming up, and we have to figure out how to deal with it in the proper way. But it’s not a focus for us today.”

JD Harriman, a partner at Foundation Law Group and an AI legal specialist, predicts that Tilly will mark the first in an invasion of synthetic performers. From his vantage, the industry should have been on full notice last year, when OpenAI created a Johansson-type voice for its ChatGPT assistant Sky without the actress’s consent. (Johansson threatened legal action, and OpenAI quickly pulled Sky from the app.)

“That should have started the bells ringing in Hollywood. Producers would love to have actors that get paid less, never make PR mistakes, never age, have unlimited reshoots and can do their own stunts,” Harriman says. “The last actors’ strike did not provide any protection against this kind of thing happening, and it will continue to grow.”

Given that Tilly’s unveiling sparked pushback from actresses like Emily Blunt, Kiersey Clemons and Toni Collette, studios employing such technology will likely face intense backlash. Like Johansson and Portman, Blunt is repped by CAA and is warning agencies “don’t do that.” (Collette, too, is a CAA client, while Clemons is handled by UTA.) SAG-AFTRA denounced Tilly, noting that the creation “has no life experience to draw from, no emotion.” But rather than denouncing the use of synthetic actors, many executives are choosing to tout the irreplaceability of human performers. 

“I think the writer, actor and director will never be able to be replicated. It’s just the human condition. It’s from the caveman days, when we wrote on walls. Part of our humanness is that we imply narratives to each other, that we tell stories,” said producer Scott Stuber at the New York premiere of the Bruce Springsteen biopic “Deliver Me From Nowhere.” “I think technology can help augment it. Will it ever replicate it? I hope not, because I think what we all do is magic, and seeing the magic in Jeremy Allen White or Jeremy Strong’s eyes is still, to me, what makes art great.”

While the acting community is alarmed, others see Tilly and the entire cast of “AI Commissioner” — all bots created by Xicoia, a spinoff Particle6 — as a reality that cannot be avoided.

“On one hand, studios may see AI performers as cost-effective, endlessly adaptable and capable of taking creative risks without the limitations of scheduling or contracts,” says Shawn M. French, founder and host of the “Determined Society” podcast. “On the other hand, this raises serious questions about the displacement of human talent, the devaluation of creative labor and the ethical boundaries of storytelling. For actors and agents, it could mean navigating a new landscape where digital performers compete for roles once reserved for people and where negotiations shift from contracts to intellectual property rights.”

Part of the job of being an actor requires grueling press obligations. On that front, Tilly isn’t at the same level as flesh-and-bone performers. Variety asked for an interview with Tilly and was told by a Particle6 publicist: “Tilly is not available to speak to at present, and we have not yet announced a specific production, just her presence and availability.”

Ultimately, some in the Hollywood trenches see the reaction to Tilly as overblown. Says one agent who represents several A-listers: “Only one producer has brought it to my attention, so whatever hysteria there is seems to be under control.”

Ethan Shanfeld contributed to this report.