{"id":286011,"date":"2025-11-11T21:09:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T21:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286011\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T21:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T21:09:13","slug":"tilly-norwood-creator-eline-van-der-velden-on-ai-actress-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286011\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilly Norwood Creator Eline Van der Velden on AI Actress Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEline Van der Velden<\/a>, a Dutch comedian, was living in Los Angeles in 2012 and going out for auditions. After being told once too often that she needed to lose weight, she created \u201cMiss Holland,\u201d a buffoonish character meant to mock unattainable beauty standards. <\/p>\n

\n\tConceived as a female version of Borat, the character won her an online comedy award and landed her on BBC Three, where she used her improv training and hidden camera videos to conduct street experiments on unsuspecting Britons in the name of social commentary.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou learn to just not care too much about what everybody is saying and thinking all the time because you just have to do your job,\u201d she told<\/a> the Times of London. \u201cYou learn to get over a lot of shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of that was mere prelude to Tilly Norwood<\/a>, the doe-eyed actress introduced by Van der Velden and her team in July. The two-minute intro video poked gentle fun at British TV, gender politics, and artificial intelligence \u2014 and was made entirely with AI.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYes, it\u2019s satire,\u201d Van der Velden wrote<\/a> on Instagram. \u201cYes, it\u2019s disturbingly close to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe backlash didn\u2019t hit until two months later, when Van der Velden suggested on a panel in Zurich that \u201cTilly\u201d would be signing with an agency. She was not, evidently, joking. Nor, she says, was she trying to whip up controversy to promote her AI company, Particle 6<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Variety, she notes that other digital characters have had agents.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t think it was controversial,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe performers\u2019 union, SAG-AFTRA, disagreed, denouncing her for \u201cdevaluing human artistry\u201d and threatening actors\u2019 jobs. Van der Velden \u2014 either sincerely or at a level of satire approaching the Swiftian \u2014 countered that no one\u2019s job was impacted and that Tilly Norwood required a lot of human artistry, just of a different kind.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a creative, I have really enjoyed creating her,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been just like a writer creating characters. You fall in love with your characters when you\u2019re writing them. It\u2019s a wonderful process. It wasn\u2019t like I just made her in a second, and that was it. You know, it took a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the interview, Van der Velden discusses the furor from her perspective and offers her take on the future of AI filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\t\tHave you ever experienced anything like this before, in terms of the attention and backlash?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I would say that\u2019s the first for me. I like to spark a conversation, and I\u2019m not shy of controversy. But this was another level.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn your statement on Instagram<\/a>, you said your work has always been about holding up a mirror to society. It seems like often these AI conversations end up being more about the person\u2019s reaction to it than about the thing itself. It\u2019s this X-ray of everyone\u2019s anxieties. Is that what you meant?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m always questioning what should we be doing as a society, right? Miss Holland was definitely that, and my new characters will do the same thing, and even the fact that I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWhere is our world gonna go?\u201d I think Tilly did a great thing in sparking that conversation. I very much want this creative renaissance to come from the creative industries. We need to take control of it as opposed to it being imposed by the tech industry. There are going to be AI actresses, right? That\u2019s a given. Tilly\u2019s not the first. Tilly\u2019s not taking anyone\u2019s job. She\u2019s created jobs actually. And there\u2019s a lot of humanity and people behind her that people forget about. It has clearly hit a nerve. This visceral reaction that people have to her is part of why I created her \u2014 because that\u2019s where the world\u2019s going, right? That\u2019s why I\u2019m saying it\u2019s a piece of art. It is us at this moment in time \u2014 where we are and how people are feeling.<\/p>\n

\t\tIt feels like there\u2019s a couple of paths on AI. And one is post-production, pre-production, using it for mood boards, that kind of thing. And the other is an AI-generated film. Are you pursuing both of those?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWe have experimented and learned and become experts at these tools. And we thought, \u201cOK how can people use this? Is it just going to be a little bit of pre-viz or a couple of scenes?\u201d And those are the great baby steps that we tell everyone is the place to start \u2014 do a little test scene. But now we\u2019re getting to the point where we can start delivering full AI feature films. So that will be where we\u2019re going next.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn terms of an AI film, the SAG-AFTRA response is that there\u2019s no evidence that people actually want to watch this stuff. And I guess the proof will be in the pudding on that. Somebody\u2019s gonna have to create something that somebody wants to pay money to see, right? And then it will be inarguable.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI think it will be a slow progression. I\u2019m sure in the coming year, there\u2019ll be plenty of effects that will be made with AI. There\u2019ll be some establishing shots, there\u2019ll be some second-unit shots with AI, and then slowly, we\u2019ll progress to a full AI film. And whether people will pay for an AI film or not \u2014 I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll know the difference. It\u2019s good storytelling that will be the reason why people will pay for it or not.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhere does your revenue come from? Is it commercials?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tParticle 6 is very much about helping traditional filmmakers make stuff for less and make it higher quality for less. So we are doing commercials, absolutely, because there are less boundaries around that. We are allowed to make commercials with AI. We might label them in some instances. This past year, we have been working with lots of studios, production companies, independents. Say they have a great film, but they\u2019ve only raised 60% of the budget, and they\u2019re worried they\u2019re not going to be able to make their film. We go, \u201cRight, well, let\u2019s make a few scenes with AI. Let\u2019s do a test project.\u201d We do that test project with them, which is like a minute or two minutes. And they go, \u201cOh, wow, this can actually work.\u201d And then we go into full production with them, helping on more scenes. And then there is our own creative pursuits. We\u2019ve been making shows for the BBC, for Sky, all these big channels in the U.K. for the past 10 years now. Some, going forward, we\u2019ll be making with AI. So we\u2019re pitching ideas. For example, Sky History is a great new commission we got. That show will come out in December. That\u2019s a hybrid show with a real presenter and with AI.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere was something<\/a> on Channel 4 recently where it was like, \u201cThis whole show has been about AI and in fact, I am an AI-generated character.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, they did the AI presenter. Now the difference is you can do AI well and you can do AI less well. And that\u2019s really where we want to be the premium brand to make premium AI content with.<\/p>\n

\t\tIn the AI space, and certainly in the marketing of it, there\u2019s sort of a leaning into the backlash. Are you familiar with Friend?\u00a0It\u2019s a little dongle that is supposed to be your AI friend, and you can talk to it and it talks back to you. And there\u2019s subway ads for it. People are so mad<\/a> about this. But ultimately it\u2019s effective marketing, because people are at least talking about it.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know. I really wasn\u2019t expecting [the backlash]. I\u2019m in a AI bubble, right? I didn\u2019t quite realize how far removed people are from this tech. I am living in a different future. I\u2019m dealing with these tools every day and these people don\u2019t even know that you can do it in the click of a button. In the U.K., the reaction was completely not like it was in the U.S. This backlash thing didn\u2019t exist in the U.K., because people understand that we\u2019re using it as a force for good, and that we\u2019re trying to get more projects, more stories told which otherwise wouldn\u2019t get told in the U.K. We\u2019re an ethical production company. We\u2019re trying to do the right thing with the AI tools.<\/p>\n

\n\tMichelle Waldron, publicist: To your point about putting stuff out for marketing purposes. Even before Tilly, Eline was out there talking to the great and the good who knew what she was doing in AI and wanted to learn. We\u2019ve had a massive influx from very big names, production companies, directors, other creators with projects that they want to work together with Eline and the team on. There\u2019s a big reservoir of projects being discussed in development. None are yet ready to be announced. Eline\u2019s under hundreds of NDAs. But there is genuine business that we will be announcing over the coming months with very high-profile names. So this isn\u2019t a marketing thing. Tilly wasn\u2019t a stunt or an exercise. It\u2019s part of a business strategy that is delivering in spades.<\/p>\n

\n\tVan der Velden: It\u2019s funny how everyone thought it was a stunt at one point.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTilly Norwood, an AI-generated character created by Particle 6.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVia Particle 6<\/p>\n

\t\tI think people were reacting to the idea that she\u2019s a person and that she has agency as opposed to being a synthetic character. I think that\u2019s what people were freaking out about \u2014 the way it was presented.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is my idea for Tilly, right? It\u2019s not to build a hollow image. Just like any character in a drama or a TV series, you would create their full character, wouldn\u2019t you? You wouldn\u2019t just leave them as an empty shell. So we are building a whole personality and her backstory and her brain. And that\u2019s a creative pursuit. It\u2019s fascinating \u2014 to build the full character of her.<\/p>\n

\t\tI think it was the signing with an agent piece where it\u2019s like \u2014 you know it\u2019s not a person, right? It can\u2019t sign a contract.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you\u2019re creating a person and a personality, you would want there to be someone to manage all the influx \u2014 we have a lot of projects now, and then branded opportunities. We still are talking to a lot of them. But somebody who really understands that digital space is what we want.<\/p>\n

\t\tNot to diminish, but anybody can create their own AI characters, right? Any studio that wanted to could do what you\u2019re doing.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the thing. A lot of people try. But to create someone resonant is a very different thing \u2014 and to make them look that good. So I encourage everybody to try all these tools. And then once they start working with these tools, they go, \u201cOh, this is quite hard.\u201d And then they need an expert team to work on their film or their character. And that\u2019s when they come to us.<\/p>\n

\n\t This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n