21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Emily Blunt brands AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood ‘terrifying’ as she begs talent agencies not to sign her.
Emily Blunt has branded AI-generated actress Tilly Norwood ‘terrifying’ and begged talent agencies not to sign her.
AI talent studio Xicoia created the digital performer, a young brunette actress, with Eline Van der Velden unveiling the project at the Zurich Film Festival.
Tilly is already attracting interest from talent agents, and Smashing Machine actress Emily confessed she is horrified at the prospect.
Shown a report on Tilly, Emily told Variety: ‘Does it disappoint me? I don’t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is.
‘No, are you serious? That’s an AI? Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.’
Yes, Hollywood is really screwed, and not just by “Tilly Norwood:”
Full-length feature films will be created by "influencer" type people, uploaded to social media. Production companies like Netflix, Disney etc. will purchase the rights. The films will catch on because they won't be remakes, or Marvel or whatever.
The days of celebrities are…
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 30, 2025
Last lines of tweet: “The days of celebrities are pretty much coming to an end. Filmmaking just became content creation.”
Miller adds, “It’s all artificial and soulless, but given Hollywood’s bottom-line-only business model with no original filmmaking and doubling down on franchises, sequels, and remakes, it was inevitable.”
Just as George Lucas kitbashed Flash Gordon, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kurosawa samurai movies, The Dam Busters, and err, Triumph of the Will to make the first Star Wars movie, somebody’s going to use this technology to make the next original sci-fi movie or TV series, the video version of Les Paul and Mary Ford recording hit songs alone in their home studio in the late 1940s and ’50s. Meanwhile, Disney thinks the path to big screen salvation is a movie version of The Mandolorian. Good luck, fellas!