Simu Liu is against using AI to replace actors — especially background actors.
Recently, the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” actor disagreed with an opinion from “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, who suggested that swapping extras for artificial intelligence could reduce big movie budgets, including on A24’s “Marty Supreme,” his acting debut.
Sure, blame the extras making 15-22 dollars an hour struggling to make a living and not above the line people making multiple millions.
On X last week, Liu replied
In a Monday interview with Deadline for the upcoming Netflix animated movie “In Your Dreams,” Liu expanded on that reply and explained why he strongly supports background actors.
He said the take he responded to was a really dumb take, particularly really tone deaf and out of touch and also just kind of incorrect. The idea that these background actors who are making minimum wage are somehow the reason why movies are now costing too much, that’s simply not true.
He said he feels that way partly because he himself began as a background actor, starting with work on “Pacific Rim” shortly after losing his accounting job over 10 years ago.
Since he began acting with no major connections or prior knowledge of how movies are made, he says that time on set was an “invaluable” way to learn the technical parts of filmmaking.
This idea of replacing actors with AI, it’s so antithetical to my development as an actor. I think if I was able to learn from that experience, then how many other people are doing the same? In depriving the world of background actors, you’re also depriving people the opportunity to kind of pick up these skills. Film is such an artist’s medium. Of all the uses of AI that have come forth, replacing art is just, I feel like, the last thing that anybody wants to do with AI. I feel like art is art because it’s human. It comes down to even the way that extras move…it all plays into the frame, and it’s all meaningful to the story. I really do feel like human beings are smart. I feel like when we see somebody in the background not moving like a human, we know. I feel like we could still tell the difference, at least right now.
he said. More broadly, Liu said he believes art should stay human, not something computers replace.
Liu isn’t the only major Hollywood figure upset about AI in film. “Pacific Rim” director Guillermo del Toro said he’d “rather die” than use the tech in any of his projects. That followed him shouting “f*ck AI!” during a “Frankenstein” screening last week in New York City.
