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The AI industry’s latest curse on humanity is a fake ‘actress’ it wants to turn into ‘the next Scarlett Johansson’

Joshua Wolens

29 September 2025

I’m constantly watching Scarlett Johansson movies and thinking it’d be better if she had no soul.

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(Image credit: Xicoia)

Hey, want to see something horrible? Here’s AI actress Tilly Norwood—which is already more anthropomorphisation than I feel strictly comfortable with—in a comedy sketch called AI Commissioner.

Wretched, right? But buckle up, because Tilly’s creators (via Variety) want to turn her into the next big thing. The homunculus-of-code-known-as-Tilly-Norwood is produced by a studio called Xicoia, itself a spin-off of AI production studio Particle6, run by producer Eline Van der Velden.
On stage at the ongoing Zurich Film Festival, Van der Velden told interviewers that “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.” Per Van der Velden, Hollywood is abuzz with Tilly-mania, and producers all over tinsel-town can’t wait to do something with her. It. Her.

Related Articles

She’s unreal: Fashion ad seen in Vogue stokes controversy by featuring AI-generated model, but the creators say ‘we don’t create unattainable looks’

‘Maybe nobody wants this and it won’t work’: Amazon is chucking an undisclosed amount of cash at AI-generated TV shows, but I’m struggling to see the appeal

Astarion voice actor Neil Newbon sinks his fangs into AI and shreds it: ‘AI sucks … It doesn’t have the happy accident possibility that are those great moments in film’

I’ll believe it when I see it. ‘Everyone is very excited about the thing I’m selling’ is less evidence than I need to believe AI actors are about to start engulfing our favourite shows, and if that AI Commissioner sketch shows anything, it’s that these things still have a ways to go before they don’t across as eerie and freakish.

The voicelines seem odd, sometimes stilted, and every wide mouth movement feels like the ‘actor’s’ skeleton is on the verge of breaking free from the cage of their body. Good actors don’t do that. Except Doug Jones.
On LinkedIn, Van der Velden wrote that audiences “care about the story — not whether the star has a pulse” and that AI can prove the answer to shrinking budgets and increasing demand for content. “We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that’s the aim of what we’re doing,” Van der Velden told Broadcast International. I think I’d rather just see Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman get the gigs.

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Joshua Wolens

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One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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She’s unreal: Fashion ad seen in Vogue stokes controversy by featuring AI-generated model, but the creators say ‘we don’t create unattainable looks’

‘Maybe nobody wants this and it won’t work’: Amazon is chucking an undisclosed amount of cash at AI-generated TV shows, but I’m struggling to see the appeal

Astarion voice actor Neil Newbon sinks his fangs into AI and shreds it: ‘AI sucks … It doesn’t have the happy accident possibility that are those great moments in film’

Google Veo 3 users long to immerse themselves in the worlds of their AI-generated videos, seemingly forgetting entire videogame genres already exist

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