Recently, Erin van der Velden, the creator of the controversial AI virtual actor Tilly Norwood, said that Tilly still has not signed an agent: We don’t need an agent at all now. If someone is relieved because of this, that’s fine, it doesn’t matter at all.
A year ago, Particle 6 studio founder Erin van der Velden debuted the AI virtual actor Tilly Norwood at the Zurich Film Festival Summit.
After a year, she returned to this industry event again.
When asked if she had expected that Tilly would cause such a big stir, Vandervelden said frankly that she had never thought about it.
She added: “But the goal I originally set was to make her the most popular AI actress in the world. I still don’t understand how she did it, but she did become popular. To be honest, it’s a bit scary to think about it.”
Now the size of Particle 6 studio has increased eightfold, with four business departments under it. It has prospered in the AI advertising and film and television industries, taking on many joint production and original customization projects. It also provides a large number of AI technology consulting services and helps major film and television studios and production companies implement AI workflows.
The head of the studio said frankly that in the past year, “many people finally realized that the AI era has really arrived, and this was my original intention in creating Tilly.”
During the live broadcast, the team first spent several minutes troubleshooting traditional equipment failures, which were common HDMI cable problems. After the equipment was debugged, Vandervelden made the AI actor Tilly appear on the screen to accept questions from the host and the audience.
When asked which actor she would most like to work with, Tilly replied that she would like to pair up with Tom Holland and Olivia Colman.“But the premise is that they must use their digital clones to shoot this AI movie with me.”
Tilly also gave her own “views” on the controversy surrounding the incident.
She said that this controversy was her most special way to debut: My name spread all over the Internet at once, which is quite interesting to talk about. In fact, no one really hates me. What everyone is against is just the upcoming AI future.
Someone asked it if it had ever contacted an American acting agent to seek contract cooperation. The answer of this AI virtual character was as mature and professional as a Hollywood A-list star, with full emotional intelligence: To be honest, my situation is quite special. At present, the entire film and television industry is still exploring how to interface with AI, so there is no need for traditional Hollywood agents at this stage. I mainly participate in AI original films, and the track is completely different from that of ordinary actors.
Van der Velden also talked about signing an agent.
The team actually considered it, but soon discovered that it was not necessary: Tilly’s current popularity and resources were enough. The studio was flooded with offers to collaborate every day, but all projects that would have required her to appear in traditional live-action films were turned down because that was simply not her purpose.
Previously, when Tilly was a guest on Piers Morgan’s live show, she suddenly broke down and spoke Cantonese without warning, which once caused heated discussion across the Internet.
Talking about this rollover accident, Vandervelden said: “You really don’t need to take it too seriously. I created the AI image of Tilly just to draw public attention to the current development status of AI technology in a relaxed and interesting way. What I really want everyone to discuss is: Does the AI industry need regulation? What kind of industry rules and safety bottom lines should we set up? This is the real issue behind this storm that is worth thinking about.”
In addition, Vandervelden also officially announced the studio’s new project “Storm Dogs”. Just a few days ago, the well-known director Rob Minkoff, who directed “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lion King”, confirmed that he will join this AI movie as an executive producer.
Over the next few months, he will work with Vandervelden and the studio team to hone the story, characters and script, paving the way for the film to start shooting.
The project is currently still in the early development stage and is expected to be officially launched in 2027. The distribution plan has not yet been finalized.
Van der Velden revealed that Rob Minkoff was one of the first big names in the industry to reach out to Tilly after she sparked controversy across the internet.
“To be honest, last year’s Internet-wide controversy brought unexpected gains. Many industry leaders quietly contacted us and wanted to cooperate.” She said, “We signed a lot of confidentiality agreements at that time. Everyone was afraid of being implicated by public opinion and criticized. I understand this. But fortunately, we have weathered the worst period of public opinion, so we have no worries about future cooperation.”
Talking about the new project “Storm Dog”, she said that the improvements brought by AI technology are very intuitive. Now the studio can create unprecedented character mouth animations and give animal characters delicate expressions that were never possible before, greatly improving the film’s narrative effect.
In her opinion, this is the correct use of AI.All AI technology must serve story creation and help content upgrade. This is where its value lies.
Related Reading
- Flydubai passenger describes putting attacker in chokehold after cockpit stabbing2026-10-01
- Exclusive interview with Apple executives: What are Apple waiting for with its foldable screen?2026-10-01
- Under the leadership of “Ning Wang”, car companies made three major retreats2026-10-01
- How Google Is Quietly Turning Millions of People Into AI Users2026-10-01
- FTC opens probe into AI giants, including Anthropic and OpenAI2026-10-01
