{"id":840421,"date":"2026-09-08T09:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840421\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:12:13","slug":"andrew-garfield-says-hes-really-scared-of-backlash-to-playing-openai-founder-sam-altman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840421\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Garfield says he\u2019s \u2018really scared\u2019 of backlash to playing OpenAI founder Sam Altman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Andrew Garfield has admitted that he\u2019s nervous about the backlash to playing OpenAI and ChatGPT founder Sam Altman in a forthcoming movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Artificial, directed by Luca Guadagnino, stars Garfield as Altman <\/a>during his firing and rehiring from OpenAI in 2023. The movie has already had a rocky start after Jeff Bezos\u2019s Amazon MGM Studios<\/a> pulled out as the film\u2019s distributor earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with the SmartLess podcast, Garfield revealed that he is trepidatious about the reaction to the film, saying: \u201cI\u2019m nervous about that one. I\u2019m really scared about that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

When hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett probed him on whether it was the \u201cbacklash\u201d he was nervous about, Garfield replied: \u201cWell, yeah. You\u2019re playing one of arguably that most powerful people on this planet right now, or an interpretation of this person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never met Sam Altman, I don\u2019t know anything about the interior of his soul. I just had to interpet what I understood, what I saw, what I read, what my imagination gave me, and what the script gave me,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Garfield then claimed Altman has \u201cprobably hacked my phone\u201d and is \u201cprobably observing every move I make.\u201d The Independent has contacted OpenAI for comment.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew Garfield will play OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the forthcoming movie \u2018Artificial\u2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

He added that the movie isn\u2019t intended to make Altman look bad, adding: \u201cI hope we\u2019re not villainizing anyone or making anyone into a hero or villain. What Luca\u2019s films do, he gets into the grey area of what it is to be human.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garfield has found himself at the forefront of movies about the tech world, having starred as the Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in the 2010 movie The Social Network.<\/p>\n

In June, Amazon MGM Studios<\/a> revealed that it would not be distributing the nearly-finished $40 million film, stating that it would \u201cbe better served if it were released by a different studio\u201d. Indie distributor Neon won rights to release the film in a bidding war.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAndrew Garfield has admitted he\u2019s \u2018really scared\u2019 about the backlash to playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Getty)<\/p>\n

The move came just months after Amazon announced it was investing $50 billion in OpenAI and roughly a year after Altman attended the wedding of Amazon founder Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n

Garfield said in July that he \u201cwas and wasn\u2019t\u201d surprised by Amazon choosing to drop the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are certain things that fit certain places and don\u2019t fit other places and they [Amazon] were nothing but supportive and nothing but encouraging while we were making the film,\u201d he told Variety.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuca has a really great relationship with them and I\u2019ve developed a lovely relationship with them as well. I\u2019m grateful that they\u2019ve helped the film to find the home that it was meant to find.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, co-star Cooper Hoffman \u2013 who plays OpenAI chairman Greg Brockman in the film \u2013 said he wasn\u2019t surprised at all by Amazon wanting nothing to do with the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m shocked they picked it up in the first place,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know who\u2019s running everything. When they dropped it, it was kinda like, \u2018Oh, yeah, that kinda actually makes sense,\u2019 but then it got picked up by Neon, which I\u2019m so happy about. I love Neon and I couldn\u2019t be more happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biographical comedy drama, written by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, also stars Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Mark Rylance, Jason Schwartzman and Zosia Mamet.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk \u2013 who is one of the founders of OpenAI \u2013 will be played by The Studio\u2019s Ike Barinholtz.<\/p>\n

Artificial is in cinemas October 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,6234,74,6235],"class_list":["post-840421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bestof","tag-technology","tag-topix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}