You've probably never heard of Tilly Norwood, and you won't find too much information about her if you were to Google her. She doesn't have a long history of being associated with Hollywood. Her online footprint is kind of shallow, yet she arrived on the Hollywood scene out of the blue, and many people, including some in the industry, can't stop talking about her.
And the talk isn't polite. Hollywood seems to despise her, especially actors and actresses, but according to Variety, talent agencies are seeing her as the future:
Understandably, the loudest noise came from within the acting community, with several well-known names chiming in among the hundreds of angry messages left in online comments sections. Several suggested that the anger should be targeted at whichever agent signed Norwood.
The thing is, the talent agents are probably right. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd put all my money on her too. Norwood isn't your run-of-the-mill actress.
Because Tilly Norwood isn't real. She's an AI creation, and as Variety reported, agents are paying close attention to the studio she was born from:
Norwood is the first creation to emerge from recently launched AI talent studio Xicoia, a spin-off from Van der Velden’s AI production studio Particle6. Speaking at the Zurich Summit on Saturday, Van der Velden said that agents had been circling the AI character and an announcement would be made over which agency would be representing her in the coming months.
Multiple talent agents are reportedly interested in signing AI actress #TillyNorwood, created by actress, comedian and technologist Eline Van der Velden through her AI company Xicoiais.
— Cinemania World (@Cinemania_World) September 28, 2025
In response to growing criticism, Eline shared a statement that read: “Tilly is not a… pic.twitter.com/gRl4SFydlY
Van der Velden said she wants Norwood “to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman,” but in a post to Instagram, noted that she doesn't see AI as "a replacement for people, but as a new tool" for movie and television creation.
The thing is, I don't believe her.
Van der Velden's AI company is going to churn out actors and actresses whom talent agents can sell out to studios, and I think they know that studios will soon learn these "actors" and "actresses" will work for far cheaper wages (obviously given directly to the creators) than celebrities who demand millions and millions of dollars. Not only that, real-life celebrities get injured, get sick, become difficult and demanding, and don't know how to shut up about their personal opinions.
Once they get a taste of AI talent and how easy they are on the margins, I can imagine you'll see real actors less and less. There will come a point in the very near future where a studio will release a movie or television show, and it won't feature one real person at all. I imagine this will likely be a streaming service like Netflix or Amazon, but rest assured, within the next few years, one of them will do it.
Netflix has already admitted to using AI to buff up various scenes in its productions. In July, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that its sci-fi series The Eternaut had AI elements in it to make a VFX sequence look better, and AI got it done faster:
“That VFX sequence was completed 10 times faster than it could have been completed with traditional VFX tools and workflows,” Sarandos said during the call. “Also, the cost of it just wouldn’t have been feasible for a show in that budget.”
Sarandos said the creative team behind The Eternaut used AI to generate a scene of a building collapsing in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” he added.
So, studios aren't just aware of AI use; they're already using it. Also, it should be noted that Sarandos was excited about the speed and cost, which is what studio brass care about most when it comes to production. The temptation to delve deeper into AI will be almost impossible for studio brass to resist, no matter the studio.
A few things need to be understood about AI and Hollywood. As of right now, AI is still a tad clunky. You can create your own AI actors and actresses using Veo3 from Google, and while it looks great, it's still a bit unwieldy. If you're used to seeing it, you can easily tell what is and isn't AI, no matter how real it looks. There's something about the movements that indicates falseness.
That said, it was just a few years ago that AI videos looked like nightmarish fever dreams. Today, they do look like cinematic and realistic to a great degree, and I imagine it will only be a few more years before it loses its AI tells, and scenes become far more easily craftable down to minute details. It's at that point that "actresses" like Norwood will be hard for studio execs to ignore.
And at that point, real-life actors and actresses will find it much harder to get work.
The thing is, I'm not sure it will stop there. AI will read audience interest, predict trends, and likely start deciding what will and won't be created purely based on data. At that point, would this even be Hollywood anymore? Studios will just become AI companies producing what AI decides is the best kind of entertainment for consumption. No more executives, no more writers, no more crews, no more actors, just machines with people at the top of the studios raking in money by giving the go-ahead for machines to do jobs that used to take hundreds of people to do.
Norwood is just the beginning, and I see her being the pebble that starts an avalanche that buries Hollywood.
