Tilly Norwood and the Future of Acting: Betty gilpin’s Advice to an AI Actor
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In the week-and-a-half since her Zurich Summit debut, so-called AI actor Tilly Norwood has been met with concern, fear, and disgust from the human actor community.Today, in a letter published in The hollywood Reporter, Betty Gilpin (who played an AI-battling nun in Mrs. Davis) shared some sage wisdom with Norwood. “When I was your age… well, wait, no. You are both infant and immortal, like Thor in a diaper,” Gilpin writes. “I mean, when I was starting out in my career like you, this very thing happened.An actress older than me pulled me aside and gave me advice.”
In the letter, Gilpin takes on the daunting task of explaining the quintessential humanness of performance. Explaining how she first fell in love with theater as a teenager, she says, “Tilly, you never had to be 14, so I’ll tell you what Google can’t. It feels like your soul gets a broken glass enema. You go from curious about this marvelous world to drowning in un-marvelous you. Who am I? How should I be? Am I alone? Your human brain answers ‘no one,’ ‘invisible’ and ’yes.'” But while watching a bad play, one transcendent actor “was so good that, impossibly, I left myself.”
As Gilpin concedes, an AI ”actor…
The Core of the Debate: What Makes Performance Human?
Gilpin’s letter delves into the deeply personal and often painful experiences that shape an actor’s craft. She describes the adolescent self-doubt and existential questioning that are integral to developing a sense of self – and, crucially, a sense of *other*. This ability to inhabit another