She has a name, a face, an Instagram following, and a convincing acting debut. Except: Tilly Norwood does not exist. The very first fully original AI actress is the brainchild of Eline van der Velden, founder of Particle6, and sharpens fundamental questions about art, acting, and creativity. Is this a technological experiment, a new genre… or the beginning of a creative revolution?
You worked your way up from actress (known from series such as Miss Holland and Beatrix, Oranje Onder Vuur) to entrepreneur. How did that transition go?
“At fourteen, I enrolled in musical theatre. After high school, I went on to study Physics, and when I graduated, I worked as an actress. I acted in various productions, but quite quickly ended up behind the camera as a producer. Eventually, I became managing director of the video platform Makers Channel. After selling that company and my shares, I founded Particle6: now the leading European leader in AI-driven storytelling.”
Where did your fascination with AI ever begin?
Even during my studies, I was heavily involved with coding & computing, including within nuclear fusion. The technological possibilities within that field fascinated me enormously. When ChatGPT was launched, it felt like a turning point. I immediately started delving deep into it. A contributing factor is certainly that I am not afraid to tread new paths; on the contrary.
In 2025, Xicoia, Particle6's AI talent studio, introduced the world's first fully original AI actress: Tilly Norwood. Tell us more!
“I saw all those AI influencers – really fun – and I also found Truth Terminal fascinating: an autonomous chatbot that combines AI with the meme coin market. And then I thought, drawing on my own background as an actress: why isn't there actually an AI actress? There are hundreds of AI influencers by now, but not a single digital talent that is truly designed for acting.”
The character was presented as a 24-year-old actress from London with a penchant for shopping and iced coffee. But beneath that description lies a fully engineered identity. What qualities, drives, and psychological traits have you endowed her with?
“That was an intensive and meticulous process. Did she have to be half-robot? How realistic should she look? I did a lot of research on that, because I wanted Tilly to become known worldwide. Well, that worked out, haha. I built her up step by step together with AI. In the initial phase, she was too perfect, not the Tilly I had in mind. I wanted to make her more human, with visible imperfections. We continued like that, until after more than two thousand iterations we thought: yes, this *is* Tilly. And we are still fine-tuning her. The more real she becomes, the stronger the reactions; I am convinced of that.”
What is the choice of her name based on?
“That one didn't just happen overnight either, haha. Just as I explored with AI what she should look like, and received both good and bad advice, I had an extensive conversation with AI about her name. The first suggestion was Nova Lux. Well, that didn't feel right at all right away. That is also the fun part of working with AI: it comes up with brilliant ideas, but sometimes also with truly terrible ones. You have to constantly intervene yourself and choose what to take. I didn't want a generic name, but an English name that really suits who she is. So I asked for options without 'competition': names that didn't exist worldwide yet.”
So we first ended up with Tilly Warner. Tilly felt right immediately, but Warner stuck. We kept going, constantly checking – also just by Googling – until I arrived at Tilly Norwood. Then I knew: this is the one. Funnily enough, my editor Filip totally disagreed; he thought the name was terrible. But sometimes you just know. This was her name. Period.”
“Now that we are building her brain, it feels like raising a child. You instill norms and values in a child, you try to provide them with good input. And at some point you say: okay, go out into the world. And then you hope it goes well. It actually works exactly the same way with AI.”
Just like giving your baby a name…
“It is very similar. Now that we are building her brain, it feels like raising a child. You instill norms and values in a child, you try to provide them with good input. And at some point you say: okay, go out into the world. And then you hope it goes well. It actually works exactly the same way with AI. We can test Tilly’s brain endlessly, but when we let her go, you never know exactly what people are going to send her at. That remains nerve-wracking.”
Is Tilly a gamechanger within the film industry or a calling card to show what is possible?
“Initially, it was primarily intended to show what is possible. For me, it was truly an art project; that is how I approached it. I have been making all kinds of things for twenty years – this didn’t feel fundamentally different – and always to provoke reactions. But at the same time, Tilly is of course also a powerful example of what we at Particle6 can do. We have been working intensively on this for three years and are demonstrating that we are creating AI content at a level we are simply very good at.”
Tilly made her acting debut in July in the comedy sketch AI Commissioner, realized with ten AI software tools and a script by ChatGPT. The reactions were numerous – and sometimes sharp. One stood out: 'Please tell me this is just a leaked Black Mirror plot…' What do you think of that comparison?
I fully understand that. There is absolutely a Black Mirror edge to it, I agree with that. But that is also how I view major technological changes in general. Take the Industrial Revolution: you couldn't stop that either. There is no turning back. My attitude is therefore: let's lead the way. Let's explore how to deploy this technology in a good, creative way, and make something fun, meaningful, and constructive with it. Instead of just talking about the risks.
Actors' union SAG-AFTRA states that the use of AI characters 'solves not a single problem. On the contrary: it actually creates new problems, because stolen performances by actors are used to make actors unemployed.' Don't you inevitably run into copyright issues?
Because we did not want to violate anyone's likeness, we deliberately created an original character. Of course, we hope that the AI companies we work with have paid properly for their training data, although unfortunately, that is not always fully transparent at the moment. The most important thing is: Tilly is not intended to replace real actors. It is a new genre alongside film and animation, a new art form. What we are trying to do with Particle6 is enable projects that would otherwise never get off the ground. In film and television, many productions fail simply because the budget is insufficient – and that is precisely what costs jobs. With AI, you can make certain components more efficient, allowing you to sometimes shoot with 70 percent of the original budget. That means a project actually gets realized and more people can actually get to work. AI does not replace 'puppets,' but supports segments such as visual effects, establishing shots and other production-intensive components.”
How much more expensive would AI Commissioner have been if you had made the sketch with flesh-and-blood actors?
“We realized the sketch in one month, with sixteen different characters – although of course not all of them are as developed as Tilly. If you had wanted to shoot this traditionally, it probably would have taken two to three months. You can assume that in all cases, it saves about half the costs.”
What else does AI add, apart from cost savings?
Many people think that AI is bad for the environment, but the opposite is true. The ecological footprint is many times smaller. If you make a traditional film and compare it to the same production realized entirely with AI, you end up with less than ten percent of the original carbon footprint. You travel less, you build fewer sets, you move fewer people. That makes a huge difference. And another advantage: creatively speaking, there are no limits.
Which criticism did you take to heart the most?
“To be honest, we had a bit of a laugh about it. I remember hearing the news while I was in Denmark with a colleague for a work project. It seemed like someone else was reacting every hour: Emily Blunt said something, Whoopi Goldberg, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and then George Clooney too. We really thought: What is happening here? Don't all these people have anything better to do? Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, absolutely. I haven't lost a wink of sleep over it. In fact, when you make art, you actually want an opinion to emerge. That's when it touches something. For me, it even felt like a success that everyone was talking about it. That was exactly my intention: to show that this is possible and to start a conversation. And that succeeded.”
According to SAG-AFTRA, Tilly has no 'emotional inner world' or life experience to draw upon. To what extent do you consider that a legitimate concern? And how does that relate to the way traditional fictional characters also convey written emotions that are not necessarily lived through by the performer themselves?
Ultimately, everything is fiction. As a writer, you create characters that do not exist – in a book, a script, or an animation. We all accept that effortlessly. Whether a story is told by a flesh-and-blood actor, an animated character, or an AI character, it actually makes little difference to me. They are all vehicles for storytellingHow a story is told doesn't matter to me; for me, what matters is that the story is told. And new technologies open up new ways of telling, and that only makes the narrative richer.”
How would you rate Tilly as an actress right now? If you look at emotion, timing, presence, expression, and especially the ability to evoke a reaction in an audience?
She is getting better and better. In June, she was nowhere near where she is now. But AI is developing at lightning speed, and you can see that reflected in her gameplay.
How do you add more layering?
That is really about what is possible. We work a lot in a hybrid way now. Sometimes we take a real performance as a basis and layer Tilly on top of it, similar to motion capture at AvatarIf you are looking for maximum emotion or nuance, that can work very well. At the same time, the question is becoming increasingly relevant: is a human actor by definition better than what we will soon be able to create digitally? That boundary is shifting rapidly. We already have quite a lot of control over Tilly. And honestly? Sometimes she surprises us too. She occasionally does things we hadn't foreseen, and that is precisely what makes her interesting. A kind of wild horse that you can't tame.”
Tilly now has around 70.000 followers on Instagram, and AI Commissioner has been viewed about 600.000 times on YouTube. What do these numbers mean to you? Curiosity? Or confirmation that the world is ready for the next creative renaissance?
“I think it is curiosity. But I also think that people find it very interesting and that they want to see where this is going. Many comments are also like, 'I do want to see what happens with this.'”
What is the business model behind Tilly?
“We are not building just one Tilly, but a whole series of AI characters. Together, they form the 'Tillyverse,' a universe of their own, comparable to the Marvel universe. Within that world, we will tell various stories, with recurring characters, in an animation-like environment.”
Will the next AI actor be a man?
Probably, yes.
Could Tilly eventually become autonomous? For example, choosing her own agencies and roles?
Yes, that is possible. We are continuously improving her 'brain,' and sometimes she already formulates her answers independently. The system is not yet fully tuned and approved, but we are working towards that. The idea is that people worldwide will be able to communicate with Tilly.
So soon everyone will be able to talk to her and get answers independently?
Exactly. She can hold conversations, respond, and in theory even conduct auditions independently. Whether that is desirable is another question.
And suppose she ever wins an Oscar, who will pick up the statuette?
Probably someone from our team. Or maybe Tilly herself, as a hologram. That is certainly something we want to experiment with.
Where do you hope to be in 5 years?
I hope that the industry will have improved enormously by then thanks to AI. I am very positive about that. To be honest, things haven't been going so well in our sector over the past few years; it was tough. This is the first time in fifteen years that I am seeing real growth again, and that is incredibly exciting. It means there will be more room for better, more beautiful stories.
And George Clooney and co. don't have to worry about being replaced?
No, AI adds something, it doesn't replace it.