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Hollywood AI-listers: is the technology ready to rival flesh-and-blood film stars?

‘Don’t fear the dead – and don’t fear me.” An exact facsimile of a young Val Kilmer, not quite dead and not quite alive, utters that baiting line in the trailer for the new western As Deep as the Grave. Director Coerte Voorhees knows exactly what he is doing – this is an AI-created version of the late actor, approved by his family but bringing with it a heap of controversy about whether such technology could make flesh-and-blood thespians redundant. Not just yet, judging by the extended glimpse of the film relea…

By the Truvace desk2 min read1 sourceJournalismTRV-2026-1970· cite & verify
Hollywood AI-listers: is the technology ready to rival flesh-and-blood film stars?

In brief

By October 2026, AI-made performance has reached cinemas and online releases. An AI version of the late Val Kilmer appears in a new western with his family's approval, while Higgsfield AI released two fully AI-generated features this year, produced in roughly a fortnight and a month.

The significance lies in whether such tools could displace screen actors, and the article suggests the risk is greatest for broad, simple performances. What remains unsettled is whether models can ever convey genuine inner emotion, and whether hybrid methods that keep human performers will prevail over fully generated casts.

Main points

  1. The Kilmer facsimile in As Deep as the Grave looks rigid and lacks his voice, according to the writer's reading of the trailer.
  2. Higgsfield's Hell Grind could manage only one emotion per 15-second shot, while The Cully Hill Boys, three months later, showed convincing repartee and comic timing.
  3. Each 30-second segment of The Cully Hill Boys required a 4,000-word prompt that was revised and regenerated repeatedly.
  4. Framestore, Flow Studio and Gossip Goblin's creator favour hybrid approaches that keep human performers at the core.

The problem

Generative video tools are becoming realistic enough that formulaic, broad-stroke blockbuster performances may be replaceable by AI, raising the prospect of synthetic performers supplanting actors.

The rundown

Reaction to synthetic performers has been strongly negative: Emily Blunt called the AI starlet Tilly Norwood 'really, really scary', and Norwood is due to appear in the feature Misaligned. Kilmer's estate approved the AI recreation, citing his enthusiasm for new technology.

Higgsfield says it has 'eliminated' the uncanny valley, and its content lead argues fully AI films liberate artists and bypass laborious Hollywood production structures. The company's two films work as extended ads for its tools, and its cast comprised AI likenesses of a streetball player, an MMA fighter and a livestreamer.

Skeptics argue models learn only the surface of images and tend toward an average. Gossip Goblin's creator records real actors first and fits the animation around them, noting that AI direction through prompts is a broad-stroke way to convey a character's inner state.

Sources

  1. JournalismThe Guardian2026-10-20

The debate