Andrew Garfield spent months preparing to play Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, and his description of the process suggests the role was anything but flattering. Speaking at the New York Film Festival’s world premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Garfield said he studied footage of Altman day in and day out, trying to find “my version of that character.” Where he landed was not kind: calculating, manipulative and nihilistic.
“There’s such a heavy responsibility… playing a live person,” Garfield told the packed hall. “I feel a tremendous amount of compassion for what that must [be] like” on the receiving end. But he also framed the film’s goal as something darker. “But at the same time, the deeper responsibility, maybe, that I think we all felt is to shine [a light] to try and do some interrogation of who we are giving all of our autonomy, power, and data to. That felt like the greater the service.”
Garfield’s Long Road To Altman
Garfield described a process rich in research. “There’s a lot of research, there’s a lot of footage, there’s a lot of information, [on Altman] which is all grist for the mill, and then there’s your own imagination,” he said. He recalled watching Altman testify before Congress for the first time and being impressed. “This guy seems f-cking great. He’s clear-eyed, he’s honest, he’s transparent, he’s talking about regulation… We need more of these people in in control, and he’s incredibly charming, charismatic.”
Then came the shift. “And then I, you know, like all of us, we learn more about a person,” Garfield added.
The Cast Behind OpenAI
The film follows the founding of OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, led by Altman alongside co-founder and CEO Ilya Sutskever (played by Yura Borisov), Elon Musk (Ike Barinholtz), and Greg Brockman (Cooper Hoffman). Sutskever is the moral center of the story, growing increasingly uncomfortable as Altman pushes forward with AI models that can lie, ignoring risks along the way.
Sutskever leads a short-lived boardroom coup that ousts Altman as CEO. But he is reinstated after Microsoft offers him a perch, and hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to quit and follow him.
Simon Rich’s Warning
Simon Rich wrote the film as a “last ditch effort to warn mankind.” He traced the idea back to grade school in New York City, where a friend of “freakish intelligence” began studying AI. Rich said he and his friends were so alarmed by the friend’s predictions that they considered an intervention, thinking the friend had lost his mind. They took him more seriously once he joined OpenAI. About a year before ChatGPT was released, the friend showed them things on his computer that were so terrifying that Rich felt the urge to warn people.
Comedy, Horror, And Elon Musk
The film has a healthy dose of comedy, and Rich sees the line between the two as thin. “There’s a pretty thin line between comedy and horror,” he said. “There are so many Simpsons episodes that are based on Twilight episodes, and Luca does a wonderful job of really straddling that line. And there are moments where you don’t really know whether to laugh or cry, and that’s often my favorite kind of art.”
Barinholtz said at the Q&A that he told Guadagnino early on he had “very complicated opinions” about Musk, and the director replied, “‘It’s not about you loving Elon, but finding what Elon loves about himself.'” The actor reminded the audience that “this is not Musk at the RNC with a chainsaw. This is him in 2014, when a lot of people were like, ‘This guy’s gonna save us.'”
Neon Takes Over Release
Neon is releasing Artificial theatrically on Dec. 25. The studio boarded the film after Amazon MGM’s controversial decision to bail. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival, with a full house in attendance.
Key Facts Box
– Release: Dec. 25, theatrical
– Studio: Neon
– Festival premiere: New York Film Festival
– Role: Sam Altman, played by Andrew Garfield
– Setting: OpenAI’s founding as a nonprofit in 2015
Guadagnino’s film presents Altman as a man whose charm is the point — and the problem. Whether that portrait holds up is a question the audience will have to answer for themselves.
Source material: “Andrew Garfield On Playing Sam Altman, A Charismatic Leader Sucking Up “Our Autonomy, Power And Data” — NYFF,” Deadline.
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