Overview

• Tilly Norwood, created by Eline Van der Velden’s Xicoia/Particle6, drew fresh rebukes from U.K. union Equity, which labeled the character an AI tool rather than a performer and raised consent concerns over source material.
• SAG-AFTRA reiterated that Norwood is not an actor and said the program was trained on professional performances without permission or compensation, with union president Sean Astin telling the Los Angeles Times the material was improperly obtained.
• Equity’s Paul Fleming said the union is exploring GDPR demands to force disclosure of training data provenance and is pressing for strengthened performers’ rights in the U.K.
• Van der Velden defended Norwood as a creative work and said talks with talent agencies continue, even as WME’s Richard Weitz said the agency is not interested and industry voices at TheGrill called AI ‘actors’ a gimmick.
• Executives described current AI use in Hollywood as practical back‑office tools like script breakdowns, scheduling, clip generation and select broadcast segments, as Wikipedia editors separately debated how to classify Norwood’s page and pronouns.