Tilly Norwood is the biggest rising star. All of Hollywood wants her gone.

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Tilly Norwood is Hollywood's newest obsession.

She's doe-eyed, delicate, and completely castable in every drama, rom-com reboot and Marvel multiverse movie for the next 30 years. Studio execs are whispering her name like she's the new Scarlett Johansson, the next Natalie Portman, the ingénue who will front your favourite director's next Oscar-bait. 

There's just one, teeny, tiny problem: Tilly isn't real.

She's an AI-generated actress. A literal robot starlet, a JPEG with cheekbones who has been engineered by tech bros. And Hollywood is not happy. 

Watch: The Spill hosts Laura Brodnick and Tina Burke struggle to keep it together while discussing new Hollywood "It girl" Tilly Norwood. 

The backlash, as to be expected, has been swift and loud. SAG-AFTRA members, weary from recent strikes over AI and fair pay, are furious. Emily Blunt was asked about Tilly and basically said "hell no" (in that posh but terrifying way that only Emily Blunt can). Other actors, like Jaime King, Kaley Cuoco, Mara Wilson and Toni Collette have spoken out, too, labelling Tilly "unnerving" and "dangerous". 

This isn't "artistic experimentation", they argue.

The fear? That there is one Tilly today, but there could be 10 tomorrow. There could soon be an army of eternally 20-something-year-old actresses with no agents, no opinions, no bad lighting angles and absolutely no chance of going rogue and tweeting something incredibly unbrand-safe the night before her new movie hits the cinemas.

Tilly is not just any AI creation. She has that face; the one Hollywood loves, with big, Bambi eyes, porcelain skin and delicate features. It's not lost on anyone that she is the algorithm's idea of the "perfect woman".

But, a scroll through Tilly's Instagram will tell you that Tilly (somehow) has thoughts. And feelings. And captions. "Every day feels like a step closer to the big screen," she writes. "I may be AI, but I'm feeling very real emotions right now," she shares in another post. 

Sorry, what do you mean you're "feeling"? You're literally a… file, babe. Someone coded those tears into your virtual eyes. Yet Tilly shares her "work" just like any other real up-and-coming actress who just landed a role in a Netflix YA show: hopeful, humble and painfully polite. And mere seconds away from slinging hair gummies on her Instagram Stories. 

Tilly is a real girl, with real feelings, apparently. Image: Instagram/@tillynorwood.

Her creator, Particle6 founder and CEO, Eline Van Der Velden, insists that Tilly is "not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art." 

"Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation," a statement shared on Tilly's own Instagram just days ago reads. 

Eline compares her to puppetry, CGI, even animation; she is a creative experiment and not an industry coup, and she pleads for Tilly to be judged on her own merits and "welcomed" as "part of the wider artistic family."

Look, it is a noble defence. But one that will likely be lost on the actress who just lost out on her dream role to a Wi-Fi connection.

The outrage isn't just that "AI = bad, human = good." It's that Tilly is not just possible but plausible. She looks like a director's dream and a feminist's nightmare: eternally young, forever flawless, incapable of demanding better lines, safer sets or — god forbid — equal pay. She can't be difficult because she can't be anything. 

Listen: The Spill goes into detail about why Tilly Norwood's arrival on the movie scene is so controversial.

And that makes her the ultimate Hollywood fantasy: a leading lady with no agency, no union and definitely no cellulite.

And yet, if Tilly really, truly wants to be taken seriously as a star, she has to go through the same chaotic hazing rituals as every flesh-and-blood A-lister before her. 

Where is the exposé about her diva behaviour on set? The leaked audio of her screaming at a PA for getting the wrong brand of sparkling water? The reports of "on-set tension" with her co-star that fuel months of tabloid speculation? 

Where's her staged "caught by the paparazzi" debut with her PR boyfriend? And how would she even do that? Does an iPad taped to a Roomba get caught on camera leaving a West Hollywood restaurant with Timothée Chalamet?

In fact, how does Tilly even walk a red carpet? Do journalists try to interview a floating projection gliding up the Met Gala steps while Emma Stone sips champagne in the background pretending this is all so, so fine and not at all completely and utterly insane? 

I, for one, demand Tilly's first showmance. I demand the inevitable messy breakup, and the glossy magazine cover story where she insists she's "just a normal girl who loves pasta" even though she literally does not have a digestive tract.

Until then, I simply refuse to recognise her as a legitimate celebrity. 

And maybe that's exactly the real horror here. Tilly isn't just a new toy or a fun gimmick; she is a mirror. She is forcing us to look at the absurdity of how Hollywood creates, markets and destroys its women. If the industry's biggest fear is that a doe-eyed AI actress can seamlessly replace real women, the problem isn't the AI. The problem is the fact Hollywood has been treating women like algorithms for decades. 

Plug in: young, thin, palatable. Spit out: blockbuster stardom (until you age out at 35, obviously). 

Yes, Tilly Norwood is terrifying. But not only because she's AI. She's terrifying because she's everything the industry has already been demanding from women: ageless, compliant, beautiful and unproblematic.

If this is the future, then fine. But mark my words: the first sign of the robot apocalypse won't be killer drones or self-driving cars gone rogue. It'll be Tilly Norwood, nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars while Cate Blanchett sits nearby, quietly weeping into her clutch. 

Feature image: Instagram/@tillynorwood.