Andrew Garfield Plays Sam Altman in Guadagnino's 'Artificial' — Without Ever Meeting Him
Andrew Garfield will portray OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming film "Artificial," and he built the performance entirely from research, not personal acquaintance. "I don't know Sam Altman. I've never met him," Garfield told Esquire U.K., according to Variety. His preparation relied on the script, court transcripts, interviews and research.
The film dramatises the five-day corporate upheaval in November 2023, when Altman was abruptly fired as OpenAI's CEO before returning to the company. Simon Rich wrote the screenplay. Monica Barbaro co-stars as former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, Yura Borisov plays OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and Ike Barinholtz appears as Elon Musk.
Garfield's approach to the role drew on Carl Jung's concept of "the shadow self" — the buried parts of a personality a person would rather not confront. He also offered a pointed observation about the real figure he is playing. Anyone who takes on responsibility for a technology that will do "a hell of a lot of damage to the soul of humanity," Garfield said, must possess a certain ability to dissociate.
The road to the screen has been anything but smooth. Amazon MGM Studios, which originally developed and financed the roughly $40 million project, dropped the film in June after principal photography had already been completed. The decision came months after Amazon announced a major investment in OpenAI; the studio said the film would be "better served if it were released by a different studio," Variety reported.
Once Amazon let it go, the finished film was shown to a cluster of potential buyers. Netflix, A24 and Focus Features all passed, according to Variety. Neon ultimately acquired worldwide theatrical rights — a pickup that gives the independent distributor a finished, star-driven Guadagnino film ready for release.
Guadagnino himself addressed artificial intelligence in an interview after Amazon's exit but declined to discuss the OpenAI film specifically, Variety noted. The director's feelings on AI as a broader subject, however, are on the record.
What makes the project's journey unusual is the collision between its subject matter and its corporate logistics. A studio investing in OpenAI stepped away from a film about OpenAI's leadership crisis, and the film then had to find a new home among competitors who passed one by one. Neon, a distributor known for aggressive theatrical releases of acquired titles, now holds a completed picture with a recognisable cast and a director whose name carries weight with audiences.
No release date has been announced.
