AI ‘Actress’ Tilly Norwood to appear in feature film set in ‘Tillyverse’ – National
An AI “character” known as Tilly Norwood will be used in a new film titled Misunderstood, its first leading role as a digitized human.
Particle6, an AI production studio founded by Norwood, is developing and producing the film, the company told Global News in an emailed statement. The company is led by comedian and writer Eline Van der Velden.
The film will be a comedy drama and a “mixed production with traditional film and TV professionals – such as directors, writers and editors – working with AI experts, with AI training and mentoring built into the production itself, Van der Velden said.
“Our work this year proved something we suspected all along,” he continued, “AI can support great narrative filmmaking, but only with large amounts of human creativity, skill, judgment and time. That’s not the limit of the technology. That’s the point.”
Get the latest country news
Get the best Canadian news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you never miss a trending story.
“The filmmakers who will succeed in the next decade will be the ones who bring decades of storytelling to these new tools, and Misaligned is where we make that work at a feature level,” he continued.
Actors and other actors in the film industry raised the alarm about Norwood’s establishment last year after public talk emerged about the possibility of Norwood signing with a talent agency, prompting a response from the Screen Actors Guild.
“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actress, she is a computer-generated actress trained for the work of many professional actors – without permission or compensation,” it said.
“It has no real-life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content that isn’t connected to human experience,” the statement concluded.
Emily Blunt talked about Norwood in an episode of Variety Awards Circuit Podcastreferring to the player’s view of the AI ​​as “intimidating.”
“I don’t know how to answer you, other than how scary this is,” Blunt said.
When Blunt was shown a photo of Norwood, he said, “No, you’re serious? That’s AI? Good God, we’re disappointed. That’s really scary. Come on agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connections.”
They are not aligned is described by Particle6 as “a coming-of-age story interspersed with existing AI chaos” that follows Tilly, an AI human with no real body, no childhood, and no lived experience, whose existence is put into question by a deceptively seductive bot from the dark web.
“The film will be funny, chaotic and self-aware – especially Tilly,” added van der Velden. “But underneath it, there’s something deeper about who we are, the performance, and our human fears around AI. And yes, art will certainly be an imitation of life.”
The film marks the production studio’s first step into the feature film space, having previously focused on branded content.
— via files from Global News’ Katie Scott
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
