Industry

As Hollywood gears up to celebrate the world’s best actors at this weekend’s Oscars, Tilly Norwood, the world’s first AI actor, is stepping back into the spotlight. She is unveiling her debut musical comedy video ‘Take the Lead’ — a high-energy, pop-meets-musical-theatre anthem calling on actors to embrace AI as a creative superpower.

The release comes ahead of Tilly’s official acting debut later this year and offers a glimpse into the "Tillyverse," a new cloud-based entertainment world where AI characters interact. The project is inspired by an essay from Eline van der Velden, creator of Tilly and CEO of Particle6 and Xicoia. The video was produced using a suite of AI tools like Suno, combined with human expertise in roles ranging from directing to costume design, and utilizes new performance capture techniques where van der Velden herself acted out Tilly's performance.

Eline van der Velden, CEO of Particle6 / Xicoia and creator of Tilly Norwood says: “Tilly is, and has always been, a vehicle to test the creative capabilities and boundaries of AI - not take anyone’s job. As an actor myself, I have loved bringing Tilly alive for this video and feel that the ability to now use performance capture in this way, to fully inhabit an AI character, is a phenomenal way to bring an unknown actor like me closer to the craft.  However, at the end of the day, even with brilliant new technology, it’s still important to stress that great AI content isn’t instant — it always takes good ideas, taste, direction, judgement and time. In other words: people remain at the heart of it.”