“Artificial” won’t hit theaters until December, but Andrew Garfield is already generating Oscar buzz for his performance as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Luca Guadagnino’s tech story, which follows the five-day period in 2023 in which Altman was fired and then rehired, received rave reviews after its world premiere at the New York Film Festival last week. Garfield and “Anora” Yura Borisov – who plays Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI co-founder who ousted Altman – have now entered the awards race, with Garfield campaigning in support and Borisov in the lead.
Talk to Variety On the red carpet of the film’s premiere at the London Film Festival on Sunday, Garfield – who has been twice nominated for the Oscars but never won – humbly reacted to the praise. “As I get older, I’m starting to understand that we just have no control over things outside of us. And the only consistent thing for me is trying to do work that I’m proud of,” he said. “I feel really, really proud of this movie… It was a really, really intense shoot. And then I’m so flattered that anyone could see this movie in the first place, let alone talk about it so kindly. That’s my real answer. I try to keep it in that perspective.”
Borissov, who was up for a supporting actor Oscar for “Anora” in 2024, added: “It’s a miracle!”
He added: “It’s unpredictable, I don’t know what to say. I’m really curious how people will feel. I’ll see what happens.”
Besides Garfield and Borisov, “Artificial” also stars Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk and Mark Rylance as “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton. Everyone was present for the London premiere.
Asked about the timeliness of the film, Garfield responded: “It’s here, it’s now. And the timing couldn’t be more exciting and important, I think, because it’s about the numbers that are in the news right now. Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Elon and all the major players who are ruling and holding the reins of this new technology, or occasionally losing the reins of this new technology. It’s really about that.”
Barbaro added: “I think AI is used everywhere, in every industry. It’s kind of the No. 1 conversation right now, and I think it’s important to question the motivations of those who created this type of technology that has so much power.”
Even before its debut, “Artificial” was the subject of much discussion since Amazon MGM Studios dropped the film in June, shortly after Amazon invested $50 billion in OpenAI. Neon then collected it for distribution and is running its rewards campaign.
In an interview with Vanity Fair last week, Altman addressed the film for the first time and said he hadn’t spoken to anyone at Amazon about dropping the film, including Jeff Bezos, and “I don’t know anyone else who has.”
He also revealed that the film was filmed outside his house and claimed that he waved at Garfield, who he admitted pulled off his walk and “weird mannerisms.” Garfield confirmed Variety that he doesn’t remember seeing Altman during filming.
“I heard him say that and I thought I would have remembered that,” he said. “I was so conscious of looking for him when we were filming near his house and on these streets. I didn’t see him and I was very, very disappointed that I didn’t see him. It was exciting, it was exciting and terrifying. We were right in front of his house, but no, I didn’t see him.”
Inside the Royal Festival Hall, Guadagnino introduced the film on stage alongside his cast while the crowd applauded rigorously in anticipation. Guadagnino, known for stylistic and sexy films like “Call Me by Your Name” and “Challengers,” admitted that “Artificial” was “the most complicated film to imagine because the world of Silicon Valley is visually the least seductive.”
“I hope, however, that you will be seduced by the film,” he continued. “It took a lot of research, very, very in-depth, in-depth research. It was a great journey to understand the people and the places and the infrastructure, and we tried to pay as much attention to detail as possible.”
Garfield said he found working with the director “irresistible” again after last year’s “After the Hunt.”
“Luca is irresistible as a filmmaker, and Luca, combined with such a juxtaposed world, is irresistible. How is he going to make this erotic?” Garfield said. “You’ll see how he made it erotic. He finds the nooks and crannies. It’s really a remarkable thing to work with Luca because he’s one of our radical artists in cinema.”
Garfield also revealed that he also had an “old thread” from “The Social Network,” in which he played Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (and had a very memorable monologue), but was originally in the running to play Mark Zuckerberg.
“I had auditioned for Mark Zuckerberg and another guy got it. But I was kind of told I was going to play Mark Zuckerberg for a few weeks, it was dangled in front of me,” he said. “So I started immersing myself in Mark, and then (producer) David Heyman called me into his office and said, ‘Well, there’s a better guy for this.’ …But I began to imagine myself taking on that responsibility, leading humanity into this next chapter and what it takes to shoulder the burden of that responsibility. What kind of personality, what kind of facets does this person have, what kind of resilience should a person have.
Garfield added of Altman: “I’m still deeply curious about Sam, he’s unfolding before our eyes as we speak and it’s sort of endlessly fascinating, like AI itself, I guess.”
Barinholtz provided comic relief, saying of Musk’s role: “I’d never heard of him. But he’s not a journalist!”
On a more serious note, he said the film asked him to separate the tech mogul’s current persona from how he was perceived when he co-founded OpenAI.
“I think we tend to think of someone the most recently we saw them, and at that time it was DOGE and chainsaws and kind of crazy behavior,” he said. “But this story takes place way before, it takes place in this time where he was really considered a god, especially among these people in Silicon Valley.”
Barinholtz said Guadagnino helped the actors get in the mood on set. “Every time Elon came into the room, if one of the cast members wasn’t impressed with him, Luca would say, ‘It’s Elon Musk! You must be like, oh my God!'” Barinholtz said, drawing laughter from the room.
During the film, audience members both laughed and gasped in horror as the events of OpenAI’s founding and the collapse of 2023 were brought to the screen. As the credits rolled, enthusiastic applause echoed throughout the Royal Festival Hall, making it clear that the momentum for “Artificial” would not stop in London.
“Artificial” is scheduled to be released in US theaters on December 25 and in the UK on January 22.
Gn entert
