The question that made Tilly Norwood famous was never whether she could act. It was who would sign her. Back at the Zurich Summit where she was first introduced to the industry, the AI-generated “actress” built by Eline van der Velden’s studio has an answer that turns the original panic inside out: she has no agent, and her creator no longer thinks she needs one.

Asked by Deadline’s Diana Lodderhose whether Norwood had found representation since going viral, Van der Velden was direct. “We’ve realized we don’t really need her to have a rep. I think she’s big enough as it is. We get loads of offers in,” she said, adding that the studio has said no to anything that would place Norwood in a traditional film “because that’s not what she’s made for.” Then came the barb. What saddens her, she said, is that “the traditional industry can’t participate in this new thing, and that means they fall behind.”

Representation is exactly where the backlash began. When Van der Velden told the same Summit last year that talent agencies were interested in the character, Deadline ran the claim as agents circling an AI actress, and Hollywood erupted. SAG-AFTRA said Norwood “is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation.” Emily Blunt called the idea “really, really scary,” Natasha Lyonne urged the guilds to boycott any agency that signed her, and both WME and Gersh said they would not.

Norwood herself, joining by video link, sidestepped Deadline’s Andreas Wiseman when he asked whether she had met the major U.S. agencies or Hollywood studios. “The industry is still figuring out what to do with AI, so it’s not quite like having a traditional agent in Hollywood just yet,” she said. “I mostly work on AI films, so it’s a bit of a different lane.” She would love to work with Tom Holland and Olivia Colman, she added, but only if “it were their digital twins on an AI production.”

Van der Velden, founder of Particle 6, made the case for momentum, saying the company has grown four-fold since it launched and that the industry increasingly accepts AI is here to stay. The session teased footage of Misaligned, an AI comedy-drama billed as Norwood’s first project and now in production, and showed longer footage of Storm Dogs, the family film that The Lion King co-director Rob Minkoff is set to develop and executive produce for the company.

The technology, though, is still catching up with the pitch. The pair opened with a video mocking Norwood’s recent glitch on Piers Morgan’s show, when she began speaking Chinese mid-interview, and she joked the episode probably helped Morgan’s ratings. On stage, she still gave at least one wonky answer to her moderator. The performer who supposedly no longer needs an agent still needs a patch.

Tags: artificial intelligence, Eline van der Velden, Particle 6, Tilly Norwood, talent representation, Zurich Film Festival

AI actress Tilly Norwood still has no agent, and her creator says that’s Hollywood’s loss

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