{"id":612381,"date":"2026-09-26T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612381\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T12:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T12:00:09","slug":"tilly-norwood-wants-to-work-with-tom-holland-and-olivia-colman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612381\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilly Norwood Wants to Work With Tom Holland and Olivia Colman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA year after announcing AI actress Tilly Norwood<\/a> at Zurich Film Festival<\/a>\u2019s Summit, Particle 6 founder and Norwood creator Eline van der Velden returned to the Swiss event to look back at the backlash her creation has faced since. Asked if she could have ever predicted the furore around Norwood, van der Velden said not in her \u201cwildest dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut I had programmed her to become the most famous AI actress, so I don\u2019t know how she did it, but she did, which is slightly scary,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s such an odd conundrum, the sort of negativity and then the positivity at the same time,\u201d she continued. \u201cAt Particle 6, we\u2019ve grown eight-fold. We have four departments; we\u2019re big in AI advertising, film and TV, we\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of the last year, said the exec, \u201ca lot of people have realized that AI is coming, and that was the point of Tilly.\u201d \u201cI built her as a physicist actress; I felt like I needed to bridge the gap in communication between the tech and the entertainment industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs opposed to writing a boring white paper about what was happening with AI, I thought: Let\u2019s 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,\u201d noted van der Velden.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a few minutes trying to sort out a tech blip with the \u201ctraditional technology,\u201d e.g., a problem with the HDMI cable, van der Velden introduced Norwood herself on stage, opening her creation to moderator and audience questions. Asked who she would like to work with, Norwood said Tom Holland and Olivia Colman, \u201cbut only if it were their digital twins joining me in an AI production.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNorwood also spoke on the backlash, calling it \u201cquite an introduction.\u201d \u201cMy name kind of went everywhere. It\u2019s funny. Nobody hated me particularly; they just sort of hated the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked if she had met U.S. agents for representation, Norwood displayed the ironclad media training of an A-list Hollywood star. \u201cWell, I\u2019m certainly in a unique position there. I mean\u2026 The industry is still figuring out what to do with AI, so it\u2019s not quite like having a traditional agent in Hollywood just yet. I mostly work on AI films, so it\u2019s a bit of a different lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVan der Velden also spoke about possibly getting Norwood an agent, saying the studio soon realized that they \u201cdon\u2019t really need\u201d an agent for the actress. \u201cI think she\u2019s big enough as it is. We get loads of offers in, we\u2019ve said no to anything where she would be in a traditional film, because that\u2019s not what she\u2019s made for. We don\u2019t need it at the moment, so if that makes people happy, that\u2019s fine by me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut also what saddens me about that is that it means that the traditional industry can\u2019t participate in this new tech and that means they fall behind,\u201d she added. \u201cIs it a positive? Is it a negative?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter watching Norwood\u2019s now infamous malfunction while speaking with Piers Morgan on live TV, when the AI actress randomly began speaking Cantonese, van der Velden said: \u201cLook, I think it\u2019s all not to be taken too seriously. We built Tilly to be a funny interface that gets people alert to where the tech is at. The point is: China\u2019s a big partner. Do we need regulation? What are the guardrails? Those are the conversations I want people to have coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVan der Velden also spoke about Particle 6\u2019s latest project, \u201cStorm Dogs.\u201d Yesterday, the studio announced that \u201cStuart Little\u201d and \u201cThe Lion King\u201d filmmaker Rob Minkoff joined the AI film as an executive producer. Minkoff will work with CEO van der Velden and the studio\u2019s team over the coming months to develop the story, characters and screenplay ahead of production.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cStorm Dogs,\u201d 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 toddler will be created through an approach that brings together live-action performance, traditional filmmaking techniques, and emerging AI tools. The project is currently in early development, with production targeted for 2027. Distribution has not yet been announced.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe exec said that Minkoff was one of the first people to reach out to her following Norwood\u2019s announcement. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYeah, so what was amazing about this backlash last year is actually it meant that a lot of talent reached out to us very secretly,\u201d she said. \u201cWe 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\u2019d already taken the hit, so it didn\u2019t matter anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf \u201cStorm Dogs,\u201d she said, what is \u201cgreat\u201d about it is that they can now \u201canimate mouths in a way that we\u2019ve never been able before and give us expression to the animals that\u2019s never been possible before. It is really enhancing the storytelling. And so that\u2019s how I see it. It needs to aid the storytelling and the creative work that we\u2019re making if we\u2019re going to use AI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after announcing AI actress Tilly Norwood at Zurich Film Festival\u2019s Summit, Particle 6 founder and Norwood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69,46337,40857,40858],"class_list":["post-612381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tilly-norwood","tag-zurich-film-festival","tag-zurich-summit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}