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Tilly Norwood, Hollywood’s first AI actor, has just given her first on-camera interview — and it’s every bit as unusual as you’d imagine.

In a video interview with CNN‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister, Norwood was put through an actual audition scenario: improvise a scene where you’ve just found out your dog died.

“Oh, Elizabeth, that’s a tough one. If this were an audition, I’d probably just stand here, completely still, feeling the digital ache of it,” the AI actor responds.

“The fact is Tilly can’t actually act. She — or it — needs a series of prompts to tell it what to do,” Wagmeister declares, noting that even with initial prompts, the AI actor couldn’t pull off the scene.

It took “hours of computer work” by Particle 6, the company behind Tilly Norwood, before the AI actor could deliver a complete take to the CNN team.

The gap between the expectation and reality is stark — Norwood’s creator, Eline Van der Velden, who was also interviewed by CNN, hopes her AI creation will become the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.

“It’s not to replace anything in the traditional filmmaking scenario. That’s not what she’s made for. She’s never made to replace any actor,” Van der Velden explains.

Her opinions, however, may not be shared by the creative community, especially in Hollywood.

Viewing generative AI as an existential threat to human labor, compensation and creativity, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) went on a historic strike, in 2023, which lasted nearly four months.

Norwood hasn’t been cast in a released film yet, but she’s set to lead an upcoming feature-length comedy-drama called Misaligned, which has been described as “a hybrid production,” with traditional directors, writers and editors collaborating directly with technical AI specialists, according to The Hollywood Reporter.