Eline Van der Velden didn’t intend to set off a global backlash at the Zurich Film Festival. On a panel, she casually mentioned that she would soon be announcing which agency will represent “Tilly Norwood” — an AI character that her company, Particle6, has created.
That remark — coupled with the image of the ingenue Tilly — generated an outpouring of fury, anxiety, fascination and lust. Maureen Dowd augured the collapse of civilization. Tyler Cowen, the economist, proclaimed Tilly his favorite actress and speculated about her virginity.
“The reaction to it is the story,” says Bryn Mooser, founder of Asteria, an AI film studio based in Los Angeles. “It’s indicative that we’re in a very tense moment in our industry.”
In Hollywood, Tilly crystallized fears about AI in a way not seen since the 2023 strikes. In the past two years, video AI models — including the just-released Sora 2 — have gotten better and better. Dozens of “AI studios” have sprouted up, with small teams of creators vying to make the first AI hit.
Particle6 has been around since 2015, but it has turned itself into an AI production company over the past three years.
Van der Velden, the founder and CEO, got her start as a sketch comedian and YouTube creator. A theme of her work is human discomfort. As “Miss Holland,” she would accost unsuspecting people in the manner of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G. In one “social experiment” video, she asked people on the street to give her a sensuous kiss. Many were happy to oblige. She then spat into a glass and invited them to drink from it. They were revolted.
Van der Velden has since moved behind the camera, partly because she got tired of the hate she would receive when her videos went viral.
In an interview in April, Van der Velden revealed that she was at work on a “factual entertainment” show for a U.K. broadcaster that uses AI to talk about AI.
“Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship,” Van der Velden wrote on Instagram in response to the furor. “Much of my work has always been about holding up a mirror to society through satire, and this is no different.”
Through a publicist, Van der Velden declined to comment for this story.
If the point of Tilly Norwood is to make people uncomfortable, then mission accomplished. But there’s nothing particularly novel about synthetic characters. Look no further than Miquela, the virtual influencer who “signed” with CAA in 2020. Yet the idea that an agency would sign an “AI actress” in 2025 struck many as a betrayal.
Agents are supposed to take the side of creatives against the studios, so it felt like a line of defense was giving way.
“I think that’s exactly what has triggered people,” says Tricia Biggio, co-founder and CEO of AI animation studio Invisible Universe. “For agents to represent AI-generated characters as clients feels outrageous.”
While the major studios are interested in using AI to enhance visual effects and speed up preproduction, they are not in a rush to cast AI talent. Under the SAG-AFTRA contract, the studios are required to notify the union if they plan to use synthetic characters. None has.
“Tilly Norwood is not coming for anyone’s job anytime soon in a Hollywood movie,” Mooser says. “I tell people, in the far back rooms of all the studios in town, there’s not some guy chomping on a cigar saying, ‘If only we can make this for a dollar.’”
Creative breakthroughs are more likely to come from small companies experimenting with off-the-shelf tools. But there’s still a big gap between what those tools can deliver and a Hollywood production. And even short-form AI videos require a lot of creative labor.
“The models are still not very good,” says Rachel Joy Victor, co-founder of AI consultancy FBRC.AI. “There’s a lot of new talent that’s emerging that’s able to bridge that gap. That talent is human talent.”
For artists who use AI, the appeal lies in adding to their creative palette.
“It’s a way for me to get stories out there faster,” says Alex Naghavi, an AI artist who is part of the Runway creative partners program. “I don’t know if the lines have been clearly drawn. For me it’s about originality. I don’t want to make something that looks like Pixar or like Disney. I want to make something that feels fresh.”
The Tilly announcement struck many in the AI content community as deliberately provocative. Invisible Universe has a character, Qai Qai, that makes music videos and has a record deal — and civilization stands.
“Nobody has been mad about that,” Biggio says. “I don’t think that everyone understands that this probably is a hype-building stunt. And B), it’s not going to threaten their livelihood the way they think
it does.”
Alex Ritman contributed to this story.
