Andrew Garfield may not bear a striking physical resemblance to Sam Altman, but the Oscar-nominated actor found an alternative way to capture the distinct essence of the OpenAI CEO whom he portrays in Luca Guadagnino’s highly anticipated film, Artificial.
The production’s initial attempts to use prosthetics to help Garfield better mirror Altman’s appearance proved entirely unsuccessful. Director Luca Guadagnino described the makeup experiment as "totally ridiculous," a sentiment shared by Garfield himself. On the red carpet ahead of the world premiere of Artificial at the 2026 New York Film Festival, Garfield laughed openly when The Hollywood Reporter reminded him of how poorly that particular cosmetic experiment went during early pre-production.
Abandoning physical transformation in favor of more traditional craft, Garfield—in a twist of irony for a film centered around hyper-advanced technology—relied on classic acting techniques and extensive human conversation, serving as an analog version of crowdsourcing to build his character.
"When you’re first learning about acting, one of the techniques, Stanislavski, is you go through the play and you see what this person says about other characters. You see what other characters say about him," Garfield told The Hollywood Reporter. "So I tried to speak to as many people as possible who know Sam or who have experiences and interactions with Sam to glean more of an objective, moral side, looking in point of view. Everyone is an unreliable narrator. I felt like I need to absorb as much as possible, put it in the cauldron, put it in the pot, put it on simmer and then [use] my own instincts and interpretation and point of view, because any other actor would have played it differently. I know that I needed to play it in the way that I wanted to play it."
Artificial tackles the complex narrative surrounding both the foundational origins of OpenAI and the broader, explosive rise of the artificial intelligence phenomenon, charting the trajectories of the prominent Silicon Valley figures who placed themselves at the absolute forefront of the technological revolution. Garfield, much like his fellow cast members in the film, heavily relied on archival interviews and public video footage of his real-life counterpart to anchor his performance. Meanwhile, Anora breakout star Yura Borisov—who takes on the role of OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever—adopted a surprisingly ethereal and unconventional approach to his own preparation.
"I hit a wall, and it was a couple of days before we started to shoot," Borisov explained regarding his process. "We have the same birthdays (Dec. 8), and I imagined, ‘OK maybe we have some spiritual connection because of this, and I can just relax and create my own character inspired by him.’"
Will Angus, an alumnus of Not Suitable for Work, stepped into the shoes of Dario Amodei, a former OpenAI researcher who later went on to co-found Anthropic. Angus noted that he deeply relished playing the prominent technology executive during a period when Amodei operated somewhat more under the radar compared to his current public profile.
"When we were shooting the movie, [Amodei] definitely wasn’t as in the zeitgeist as he is now, so it was very cool to learn about it from the ground floor," Angus told The Hollywood Reporter. "We treated him well. … He really had this anxiety to make sure that AI was morally aligned with humanity so I kind of enjoyed being in that role."
In real life, Amodei has consistently pushed for comprehensive federal safety regulations governing the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Just last month, the Anthropic executive made waves by publicly calling for an industrywide slowdown of artificial intelligence development to allow essential safety measures and guardrails time to adequately catch up with the staggering pace of innovation.
When asked if he personally shares or believes in Amodei’s vocal concerns regarding artificial intelligence safety, Angus maintained a cautiously optimistic and measured perspective.
"I hope he’s doing the best he can to make sure AI’s aligned with human goals," he said. "I don’t know. I hope so."
The path to getting Artificial onto the big screen has been uniquely dramatic. Neon ultimately acquired distribution rights for Artificial after Amazon MGM Studios made the abrupt decision to drop the nearly completed feature film in June. Neon has scheduled a Christmas Day theatrical release for the project, which was written by Saturday Night Live alumnus Simon Rich. The star-studded ensemble cast also features Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Monica Barbaro as OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Cooper Hoffman, Mark Rylance, Will Price, Chris O’Dowd, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Thaddea Graham, Nicholas Hamilton, and Angus Imrie.