An AI With No Body Just Landed a Movie Deal

Tilly Norwood is entirely AI generated and is about to headline her first feature film. Particle6, the London studio that created her, announced “Misaligned” on Monday (July 6)—a comedy-drama in which Norwood plays an AI being with no body, no childhood and no lived experience of her own, but access to everyone else’s, Variety reported. The studio is calling it a hybrid production, with traditional directors, writers and editors working alongside AI specialists. Hollywood is calling it something else.

Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) said in a statement issued after Norwood’s 2025 debut that Norwood is “a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation” and that “audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.”

Particle6 Founder Eline van der Velden has leaned into the controversy at every turn, using Norwood’s social media presence to respond to critics and describing the film as “funny, chaotic and self-aware — very Tilly,” according to The Independent. “Our ambition has always been to show the creative industry what is possible with AI at any one point in time,” van der Velden added.

AI Performers Eliminate the Contract, the Schedule and the Set

The commercial case for synthetic performers is not about replacing movie stars. It is about everything else. The secondary characters, background talent, international dubbing, advertising campaigns and merchandise make up the expensive, time-consuming side of the business, precisely because real people come with schedules, contracts and agents. A synthetic performer can be aged, de-aged, placed in a different market’s cultural context or redeployed in a sequel without a phone call to anyone.

The infrastructure is moving fast. Google, Runway and ByteDance all released new AI video models in 2026 as the technology for generating realistic synthetic performances improved, PYMNTS reported. Netflix acquired InterPositive, an AI filmmaking company founded by Ben Affleck, taking synthetic production tools from the startup market into a studio balance sheet. AI is already embedded in Hollywood’s production pipeline—including de-aging, visual effects, post-production editing and script analysis. Norwood represents the next step. Instead of a tool that helps make a film, she is positioned as the film’s performer.

Unions Propose a Tilly Tax on Every AI Performer Appearance

SAG-AFTRA began formal contract negotiations with studios in February with AI safeguards at the center of the talks, PYMNTS reported. One of the union’s proposals is a “Tilly tax,” a royalty fee payable whenever an AI-generated performer appears in a production, designed to make synthetic casting carry a real cost, according to Fortune.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law in December requiring advertisers to disclose when an AI-generated performer appears in a commercial, PYMNTS reported. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2602 into law in 2024 that voids contract clauses letting studios use an AI-generated replica of a performer’s voice or likeness in place of in-person work unless the performer had legal or union representation when agreeing to it.

The rules are arriving after the fact. Norwood already has a music video, a social media presence and now a feature film in development. van der Velden told The Hollywood Reporter that the filmmakers who succeed in the next decade will be the ones who bring storytelling instinct to new tools rather than treating the technology as a replacement for craft. Whether audiences show up for Misaligned will answer one question. Whether the “Tilly tax” passes will answer another.

For all PYMNTS AI and digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily AI and Digital Transformation Newsletters.