Actor Betty Gilpin shares brutal letter to non-human actor Tilly Norwood
Topics: Celebrity, Technology
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for STARZ
Topics: Celebrity, Technology
An ‘AI actress’ called Tilly Norwood has received a scathing letter from A-list actress Betty Gilpin following backlash from other Hollywood stars.
This might just be your first time hearing about Norwood, who is the new actress on the scene.
Having been dubbed as 'the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman,' people have delivered their thoughts on her and her lack of, well, humanity.
Norwood is not a real-life person and is a computer-generated actor created via artificial intelligence.
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She is owned by Xicoia, a talent studio attached to the AI production company Particle6, and was created by Eline Van der Velden.
Her debut saw many celebrity names kicking off about her creation, but nothing has been more scathing than what actress Betty Gilpin has penned in a letter to the AI star.
Gilpin penned a strong letter, which was published by the Hollywood Reporter, sharing her thoughts on an AI actress in the industry and some advice for the youngster.
This comes after celebs like Emily Blunt called the creation 'terrifying', while Whoopi Goldberg described it as like being 'up against something that's been generated with 5,000 other actors'.
Gilpin began by writing: “Dear Tilly Norwood, They tell me you are an actress and a computer. I am an actress and almost 40. Let’s talk.”
The actress, who is best known for her roles in films like Ghost Town, Mrs. Davis, and The Grudge, likened Norwood to an ‘infant and immortal, like Thor in a diaper’.
She explained how when she began her career, an older actress gave her advice, and now she’s passing down a similar talk.
She advised Norwood: “I was at a summer theater festival in 2009, which meant being drunk in jeggings and flirting with married people with good diction in a meadow. Actress lesson one, Tilly: Go to the meadow, but only talk to Ann Dowd. Don’t instead go to the roof to look for meteors with the BAFTA guy. Talk to Ann Dowd, Tilly.”
Gilpin went on to explain to the AI creation what a play meant, telling her it’s when people ‘stand on, like … a wooden floor?’
Reminiscing about falling in love with acting and being 14 watching plays, Gilpin reminded the bot that she ‘never had to be 14’.
She said of what it’s like to grow and become an actress: “It feels like your soul gets a broken glass enema. You go from curious about this marvelous world to drowning in un-marvelous you. Who am I? How should I be? Am I alone? Your human brain answers ‘no one,’ ‘invisible’ and ‘yes'.”
She claimed that the difference between them and her was that they went through this rollercoaster of an emotional journey, and how perhaps she was created as a way for people to look at something pretty without having to consider that she’s a person.
Gilpin wrote: “While I myself was certainly never AI hot, I had a few good years of human hot during which construction workers on Canal and moguls at Sugarfish would stammer at my silhouette. It felt like power. But then they’d treat me like property, and that felt like handcuffs.
"Maybe that’s why you were created. Property without zits or opinions. I wonder if an eyelash or toothshine of mine from a screenshot 20 years ago is one speck of your billions of Hot Young Actresses mosaic that is your not-real face.”
However, she noted that the creation of Norwood makes her feel ‘alone’, as she wrote of the ever-growing presence of AI-generated content: “My algorithm now suggests various surgeries and sparrow semen serums to look more … like you, Till. It’s tempting. You look good. But you look empty. You don’t make me feel like my cells are trading with yours. You make me feel alone.”
She explained the plot of the play by Arthur Miller called All My Sons, telling her it was about 'a parent who did a bad thing’.
She added, mentioning her creator: “He took a shortcut out of greed, and it hurt people. I looked up your creator, Tilly. We were born in the same year. I wonder if she feels like I do at 39, stepping down from the pedestal of youth to see who’s waiting in the meadow for the good stuff.”
In the end, she told the actress: “Tilly, you cannot look up and become half of someone. Because you are no one.”
Finally, she simply requested she goes ‘home’.
In light of all the hate, creator Van der Velden issued a lengthy statement, posted to both her own Instagram account and Norwood’s.
She hit back with: "To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work - a piece of art.
“Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.”