Curiosity and fear powered actor Andrew Garfield's performance in Luca Guadagnino's OpenAI movie "Artificial," which premiered at the London Film Festival on Sunday.
Garfield plays OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the film, which unfolds over two decades and chronicles the conception and growth of the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT and Altman's dramatic firing and rehiring in 2023.
"I think the reason I was drawn to it was just pure curiosity and fear and really trying to understand as deeply as possible the people who are ushering us into this next phase of the world," said Garfield.
"There's a sense of courage and imagination and resilience these people at the top of these companies must have, the ability to withstand so much criticism and such a microscopic lens on them as people. And it's important that we do that because we need to know who's in power and who's creating our new world," he said.
Garfield, who also starred in 2010's Facebook origin film "The Social Network," did not contact or meet with Altman in preparation for the role.
"I don't know Sam, and I have a lot of compassion for a person who's my age, almost, and there's a movie being made about him," Garfield said. "It's not him, but it's an idea of what this story is and his part in it."
OpenAI did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Altman said he was not expecting an "accurate depiction."
With a screenplay by Emmy-winning "Saturday Night Live" writer Simon Rich, "Artificial" stars Russian Oscar-nominee Yura Borisov as OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who left the company after his involvement in Altman's brief ouster. It follows the ethical differences and conflict over AI safety between Altman and Sutskever, who trained under Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI," portrayed in the film by Mark Rylance.
The film also stars Ike Barinholtz as Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Monica Barbaro plays Mira Murati, OpenAI's former technology chief. It was shot in 2025 and comes at a time of mounting concerns triggered by recent incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic that have sparked fears that rogue AI systems may slip beyond human control.
"It's so fascinating making a film like this when the topic is so relevant right now," said Barbaro. "We'd be on set, watching two people argue with each other on Twitter, who we were portraying in this movie. It was really wild to have that experience. It's exciting, and it's also really daunting because you want to be truthful, but the truth seems to change every month."
