Andrew Garfield is unrecognisable as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in first footage from controversial new film
Andrew Garfield is unrecognisable as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in first footage from controversial new film
Adam WhiteThu, September 10, 2026 at 8:49 AM UTC
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The first footage of Andrew Garfield in the role of OpenAI and ChatGPT founder Sam Altman has been released – along with our first glimpse at one of the most controversial films of the year.
Artificial, from filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (of Challengers and Call Me by Your Name fame), was financed by Amazon MGM Studios, but they announced in June – after production had completed on the $40m film – that they would no longer distribute it and were selling it off. It said in a statement that the film would “be better served if it were released by a different studio”.
It came just months after Amazon announced it was investing $50bn in OpenAI and roughly a year after Altman attended the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to Lauren Sánchez.
The film, which stars Garfield as Altman and details his firing and rehiring from OpenAI in 2023, was picked up by indie distributor Neon in July following a bidding process. Also starring in the film is A Complete Unknown Oscar nominee Monica Barbaro and Ike Barinholtz in the role of Elon Musk.
Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov, as computer scientist Ilya Sutskever, in ‘Artifical’ (Neon)
The new trailer has been unveiled in the same week that Garfield admitted to being nervous about backlash to his portrayal of Altman.
While appearing on the SmartLess podcast, Garfield said playing one of the most powerful people on the planet came with some drawbacks.
When hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett probed him on whether it was the “backlash” he was nervous about, Garfield replied: “Well, yeah. You’re playing one of arguably that most powerful people on this planet right now, or an interpretation of this person.”
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“I’ve never met Sam Altman, I don’t know anything about the interior of his soul,” he explained. “I just had to interpret what I understood, what I saw, what I read, what my imagination gave me, and what the script gave me.”
Garfield then joked that Altman has “probably hacked [his] phone” and is “probably observing every move I make”.
He added that the movie isn’t intended to make Altman look bad, adding: “I hope we’re not villainising anyone or making anyone into a hero or villain. What Luca’s films do, he gets into the grey area of what it is to be human.”
Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman in ‘Artificial’, and the real Sam Altman (Neon/Getty Images)
While Garfield has expressed relief that Artificial will definitely see the light of day after being dropped by Amazon, his co-star Cooper Hoffman recently joked that he saw the bright side of the movie possibly vanishing into the ether.
“It got dropped, and I was like, ‘OK, maybe this never needs to come out’,” he joked – but only because he was uncertain about his performance as a software engineer in the film. He admitted that he lacked confidence on the film’s set, primarily as he had been asked to shave his head.
In response, Garfield said Hoffman’s worries were silly, when asked for comment by the Hollywood Reporter. “He’s like a bull in a china shop in this film; there’s a brashness and a brutishness that he found for the character that I really love,” he said. “And it’s different than his usual style, but it felt lived-in, and I thought he looked fantastic. Very close to the real person he’s playing, too.”
Artificial will be released in UK and Ireland cinemas on 22 January, 2027, and will screen at the BFI London Film Festival this October.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
