As we approach the much-awaited release of ‘Artificial’, Andrew Garfield recently revealed that he was initially charmed by Sam Altman before he portrayed the controversial CEO of OpenAI in the new film directed by Luca Guadagnino.
“I remember seeing Sam testifying to Congress for the first time, way back when,” Garfield said on at the movie’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival. “I was like, ‘This guy seems great. He’s honest. He’s transparent. He’s talking about regulation, and he has no stake in OpenAI. We need more of these people in control. He’s incredibly charming and charismatic.’ And then you learn more about a person.”
Garfield, who had invested “two to three months” listening and watching footage of Altman while preparing to play him, described feeling a moral responsibility to participate in a movie like “Artificial.” When they were filming, Garfield recalls, “news stories were coming out every day” about the dangers of AI.
“I wish we could give it even more teeth in a way,” Garfield said. “We need to shine the light as bright as possible at the nooks and crannies of people we’re giving all of our autonomy and power to.”
Garfield was joined at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall by Guadagnino, writer Simon Rich and actors Yura Borisov (as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever), Ike Barinholtz (as Elon Musk) and Cooper Hoffman (as OpenAI president Greg Brockman). Monica Barbaro, who portrays OpenAI’s chief technology officer Mira Murati, wasn’t in attendance. The movie charts the evolution of OpenAI and dramatises the tumultuous time when Altman was controversially fired and then rehired by the AI giant.
Garfield has a history of portraying many real people on screen, including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in the famous “The Social Network” and composer Jonathan Larson in “Tick, Tick… Boom.” Evidently, it’s a responsibility the actor doesn’t take lightly.
Source: Variety
