AI Val Kilmer Recreation Stars in New Western, Reigniting Actor Debate
Experts are split on whether AI performers are a distant prospect or close to mainstream film work
By AXY Business Desk ·
Key points
- An AI-created version of the late Val Kilmer appears in the trailer for the western As Deep as the Grave, with approval from his family and estate.
- Director Coerte Voorhees is using the recreation as a central feature of the film, which has drawn controversy.
- Framestore’s Tim Webber argues that AI models learn from surface detail and are far from capturing genuine human emotion.
- Higgsfield AI claims to have eliminated the uncanny valley, and its two fully AI-generated features are essentially extended advertisements for its products.
- Tilly Norwood, an AI performer, is set to appear in the feature-length film Misaligned, intensifying debate over synthetic actors.
An AI-created version of the late actor Val Kilmer delivers a line in the trailer for As Deep as the Grave, a new western that has become a test case for whether artificial intelligence can stand in for human film stars. “Don’t fear the dead – and don’t fear me,” the digital recreation says. The film’s director, Coerte Voorhees, is openly leaning into the novelty. The recreation was approved by Kilmer’s family, and his estate signed off on it, citing the actor’s enthusiasm for new technology that expands storytelling. The project has nonetheless revived a wider argument in Hollywood about whether synthetic performers could make flesh-and-blood actors redundant.
Why the Kilmer Recreation Is Drawing Attention
Val Kilmer built a long screen career, with roles in films such as Top Gun and Tombstone, the 1993 western in which he played Doc Holliday. Because he is no longer alive, any new performance from him has to be assembled from existing material rather than from a living actor’s work on set. That is what makes the As Deep as the Grave trailer striking. The character is a near-exact facsimile of a younger Kilmer, and the film is built around that resemblance.
The Guardian, which has reported on the film, describes an extended glimpse released earlier this year in unflattering terms. The figure looks like a thirtysomething Kilmer, but it appears strangely rigid, and it does not seem to have his voice or his signature air of watchful shrewdness. That assessment points to a gap that matters in a medium built on acting. A digital likeness can convincingly copy how a face looks, but reproducing how a performer thinks, reacts and sounds is a much harder task.
Digital versions of real people are not new to film. The Guardian points to the de-aged Indiana Jones in The Dial of Destiny as an example of the sort of CGI reincarnation that has been used in recent blockbusters, and such effects have often drawn criticism for looking slightly wrong. The Kilmer project is different in scale and purpose, because it creates a central performance for a dead actor rather than adjusting an existing scene.
Tilly Norwood and the Backlash Against Synthetic Performers
The Kilmer trailer arrives against the background of a separate controversy. Tilly Norwood, presented as an AI “starlet,” was unveiled last year. She appeared in an introductory comedy sketch, and the actor Emily Blunt described her as “really, really scary.” The reaction showed how strongly many people in the entertainment industry feel about synthetic performers taking the place of real ones.
The Guardian describes a feeling it calls the “Norwood injunction”: the sense that a tech-driven agenda is imposing something no one asked for. That reaction has deepened with the announcement that Norwood will appear in the feature-length film Misaligned. The backlash is not only about quality. It is also about jobs, consent and who controls a performer’s image and voice.
Those concerns are part of a broader labour debate. The 2023 strikes by Hollywood writers and screen actors included demands for limits on how studios could use artificial intelligence, and questions about digital replicas of performers were central to those talks. Any performer whose likeness could be copied or reused raises the same basic question: who agrees to that use, and who is paid for it.
Scepticism From Visual Effects Specialists
Not everyone in the industry believes AI performers are close to matching human actors. Tim Webber, chief creative officer at the British visual effects company Framestore, is sceptical that fully AI-generated actors can capture the complexity of human inner life. “AI models are trained on the surface of things – the pixels of internet images, if they’re image models,” he says. “To get to the level where it’s a human performance, where there’s genuine emotion involved, is a long way further down.”
Webber’s point is that these systems learn from the outside of performances. A pixel is one tiny dot of colour in an image, and an image model learns patterns from huge numbers of such dots. It does not necessarily learn why an actor pauses, what a character is afraid of, or how a scene changes a person. The Guardian notes that this approach would seem to be the opposite of method acting, in which performers draw on their own memories and emotions to make a role feel authentic.
The argument is not settled. Webber’s view is a judgement about where the technology stands now and how far it has to go, and some proponents argue that the gap will narrow quickly. Still, his comments highlight a central issue for studios: a convincing face and a convincing performance are not the same thing, and audiences tend to notice the difference.
Higgsfield’s Claims About the Uncanny Valley
The debate over realism often returns to the uncanny valley, a term coined by the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. It describes the unsettling feeling people get when a human-like figure looks almost real but not quite, and it has long been used to explain why some computer-generated humans seem eerie. The Guardian describes it as a nagging phoniness that has affected even sophisticated recent CGI.
Higgsfield AI, one of many companies building AI video tools, recently claimed to have “eliminated” the uncanny valley. That is a bold claim from a company with an interest in promoting its technology, and the article does not present it as independently tested. It is best read as the company’s own assessment, which the wider industry is still testing through its own films and trailers.
The claim matters because if it holds, the main obstacle to AI performers in mainstream film would shrink. If it does not, the technology may still be useful for effects or for low-cost production, but it may struggle to win audiences in roles that depend on subtle emotional reactions.
Two Fully AI-Generated Features Test the Idea
Higgsfield has released two full-length, entirely AI-generated features this year. Hell Grind is a 95-minute action fantasy, and The Cully Hill Boys is a 115-minute caper comedy that the Guardian compares to the work of Guy Ritchie. Both are online-only releases. According to the article, the work of shooting and post-production took the equivalent of a fortnight for Hell Grind and a month for The Cully Hill Boys, not counting time spent on the scripts.
The company’s content lead, Adil Alimzhanov, aged 23, is bullish about the approach. He used his own face for the protagonist of Hell Grind. He argues that completely AI-generated films are liberating for artists and that they bypass laborious Hollywood production structures. “We can’t fight new tools simply because they transform industries,” he says. “If you draw a parallel with when cars first came out, if we’d fought that, everybody would still be riding horses today.”
The Guardian also notes that both films are essentially extended advertisements for Higgsfield’s products. That context is important for readers judging the films. A short schedule and low cost are real advantages, but a film that promotes its maker’s tools is also a marketing exercise, and its success does not by itself show that audiences will accept AI actors in mainstream cinema.
What Happens Next
Several developments will show whether AI performers move from novelty to routine. The release of As Deep as the Grave, and audience and critical reaction to a digital Val Kilmer in a lead role, will be an early signal. The feature debut of Tilly Norwood in Misaligned will be another test, since it would put a synthetic performer into a full-length film rather than a sketch or short appearance.
Industry negotiations over digital replicas and consent are also likely to shape what studios can do. Because the 2023 disputes centred on protections for performers, any future rules on using a person’s likeness, voice or performance could determine whether projects like the Kilmer film become common.
For ordinary viewers, the questions are practical. Will they know when they are watching a digital performer? Will films credit or disclose AI-generated roles? And will audiences feel the performance is real enough to care about. Those answers will matter more than any single trailer. This could mean that AI actors gain a foothold first in low-budget or niche productions, while major studios move more cautiously, but that outcome is an analytical possibility rather than something the source material has established.
Questions and answers
Who approved the AI version of Val Kilmer in As Deep as the Grave?
The recreation was approved by Kilmer’s family, and his estate signed off on it, citing his enthusiasm for new technology that expands storytelling. The film’s director is Coerte Voorhees.
Will Tilly Norwood appear in a feature film?
Yes. The article reports that Tilly Norwood, an AI performer first unveiled last year, will appear in the feature-length film Misaligned.
Can AI-generated actors match human performers?
Experts are divided. Framestore’s Tim Webber is sceptical that AI can capture genuine human emotion, while Higgsfield AI claims to have eliminated the uncanny valley, a claim the article does not present as independently tested.
What is the uncanny valley?
The uncanny valley describes the unsettling feeling people get when a human-like figure looks almost real but not quite. The term was coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970.
Topics: Val Kilmer, As Deep as the Grave, Tilly Norwood, Higgsfield AI, Coerte Voorhees, Framestore, AI actors, Hollywood
Sources: The Guardian Business