Ike Barinholtz calls his Elon Musk menacing in the room, ridiculous from afar
Ike Barinholtz says his Elon Musk is menacing up close and a little ridiculous from a distance.
That is how he described playing the tech billionaire in Artificial, Luca Guadagnino's film about OpenAI, in comments reported by Deadline. It lands fast. It also sets the tone for a film that treats Silicon Valley power as both scary and strange.
Andrew Garfield stars as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, with Barinholtz as Musk in support, according to the same report. The film is directed by Guadagnino and written by Simon Rich. It comes from Neon, the independent company handling its cinema release.
The story centres on Altman's firing and rehiring by OpenAI's board over five days in November 2023, Deadline reported. That brief boardroom battle made global headlines at the time. The film compresses it into a comedy-drama, a story played partly for laughs and partly straight.
Artificial is due in US theatres on Christmas Day, 25 December. Neon describes the wider project as the story of OpenAI and a two-decade artificial intelligence arms race, on its film page. The Christmas corridor is a busy date, when studios place adult dramas alongside family releases.
The ensemble around Garfield and Barinholtz is large. It includes Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O'Dowd, Mark Rylance, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd, Deadline reported. Barbaro plays former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, according to Variety.
Musk is satirised rather than presented straight, according to The Sacramento Bee. Barinholtz has said the version in the film is very different from Musk's current political public persona. The distinction matters for general viewers, because the Musk on screen belongs to the earlier OpenAI chapter, not his later political profile.
What makes this stand out for audiences is the speed. A boardroom sacking from 2023 is already back as a Christmas cinema release with a major director, a big cast and a straight-to-the-headlines subject.
