Not many people have seen Hailee Steinfeld\u2019s latest film.<\/p>\n
The \u201cSinners\u201d star appeared in \u201cAsteroid,\u201d an outer space thriller that\u2019s half movie and half interactive experience, using Google\u2019s Gemini AI and a 180-degree field of vision enabled by the soon-to-be-released Android XR Samsung headset to bring the story to life.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n A key element of \u201cAsteroid\u201d is two AI-powered interactive elements, which bookend the film by Doug Liman. It\u2019s that AI aspect that brought Jon Zepp, head of entertainment, content and platforms at Google, and Jed Weintrob, president of 30 Ninjas, which produced the film with Liman, to TheGrill, TheWrap\u2019s annual business, media and technology conference, to talk about the technology and filmmaking.<\/p>\n While on the panel, both addressed the hot topic of the town: the so-called \u201cAI actress\u201d known as Tilly Norwood, which made headlines when its creator claimed it would be signed by an agent \u201cin the coming months.\u201d Zepp\u2019s Google, after all, has placed a high priority on the advancement of AI.<\/p>\n But even as \u201cAsteroid\u201d embraces AI, those involved with the film don\u2019t necessarily support the narrative that AI actors are automatically the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think that this is all evolving, but it\u2019s not clear that just synthetic actors are adding utility of itself, so why do that?\u201d Zepp said. \u201cIf there\u2019s ways to extend the experience where that actor would not otherwise have been available, OK, that\u2019s an additional layer of utility that\u2019s added \u2026 So, we kind of look at what\u2019s the added benefit for the consumer or the overall process. That becomes more interesting than just doing it for the sake of doing it.\u201d You can watch the full clip below.<\/p>\n The critical read of the situation adds to the chorus of backlash that erupted after the idea of Norwood obtaining representation came out this weekend. Thus far, talent agencies like Gersh and WME (which confirmed its stance at TheGrill) have underscored that the signing wouldn\u2019t come from their companies.<\/p>\n \u201cAsteroid\u201d doesn\u2019t use AI actors, but it does use AI to extend a performance. In \u201cAsteroid,\u201d the filmmakers feel they\u2019ve found that added benefit. While the main short film is directed by Liman, \u201cAsteroid\u201d offers viewers interactive opportunities on either side \u2014\u00a0including a pre-movie chat with a Gemini-generated version of Metcalf (playing himself) and a post-movie experience where viewers can once again interact with the NFL player to suss out what went wrong on the space journey.<\/p>\n Zepp spoke with TheWrap\u2019s Roger Cheng and \u201cAsteroid\u201d creator\/30 Ninjas partner Jed Weintrob about the experience \u2014\u00a0and AI filmmaking as a whole \u2014 ahead of the film\u2019s launch when the Samsung XR headset is released in October.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go where the consumer is going and wants to be, and to another degree you don\u2019t sacrifice your key creatives\u2019 vision to get there,\u201d Weintrob said of the integration of immersive tech in filmmaking. \u201cIn this case, it didn\u2019t mean making an interactive film, which we\u2019ve done in the past, you know, we were very much integrating AI into our work flow, into our experiences. We very much believe that our future is going to continue to be led by visionaries, storytellers and creatives telling their stories through their perspectives, and that these new technologies are really exciting ways for audiences to engage further, to personalize and customize.\u201d<\/p>\n Steinfeld and Metcalf star in \u201cAsteroid\u201d alongside Ron Perlman, Rhenzy Feliz, Leon Mandel and Freida Pinto. Zepp and Weintrob both underscored the importance of taking a strong, creator-driven concept from Liman and ensuring that their experiential tech was additive, not tech for tech\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we always strive for in the whole experience is authenticity,\u201d Zepp said. \u201cYou want to feel like it\u2019s a really good movie, and then the utility of the conversation is adding value. If it feels canned, if it feels not authentic to DK and how he might interpret the question with context, it will fall flat.<\/p>\n The post Hailee Steinfeld\u2019s Immersive \u2018Asteroid\u2019 Producers Say \u2018Synthetic Actors\u2019 Can\u2019t Replace Real Ones: \u2018Why Do That?\u2019<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not many people have seen Hailee Steinfeld\u2019s latest film. The \u201cSinners\u201d star appeared in \u201cAsteroid,\u201d an outer space thriller that\u2019s half movie and half interactive experience, using Google\u2019s Gemini AI and a 180-degree field of vision enabled by the soon-to-be-released Android XR Samsung headset to bring the story to life. More from TheWrap A key […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2029849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[384230,328655,344775,356367,384231,384228,384229,384232],"class_list":["post-2060776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-asteroid","tag-doug-liman","tag-google","tag-hailee-steinfeld","tag-interactive-elements","tag-jed-weintrob","tag-jonathan-zepp","tag-the-directors-guild-of-america"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Ben-Stiller-Jessica-Chastain-to-Star-in-Apple-TV-Thriller.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2060776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2060777,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2060776\/revisions\/2060777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2029849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2060776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2060776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2060776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n