Among Hollywood’s creative class, AI is a sort of bogeyman right now. In a film and television market where less is being made and actors, writers, and directors are finding it harder and harder to get consistent work, executives’ talk about the potential of AI is not exactly landing well.
So some were initially surprised to see Natasha Lyonne, the actor and writer known for Russian Doll and Orange Is the New Black,launch an AI company. But she thinks that it’s better for creatives to figure out how to use AI in a way that benefits them, rather than be left behind.
Her company is called Asteria Film Co.; it uses AI tools to create “ambitious and visually rich films on independent budgets.” It relies on the AI model Moonvalley, which was built for filmmaking and cinematography.
Lyonne came to Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco this week, where she talked with my colleague andTerm Sheet author Allie Garfinkle about this new endeavor. She said she got interested in technology and science fiction when she was making Russian Doll (for those who haven’t watched the Netflix show, it involves time loops).
“It does seem that there’s some real rarefied air of sort of C-suite versus the rest,” she said of tension over AI in Hollywood. “And I’m deeply concerned, at least in my business, I’m someone who’s been doing this since I’m 4. … I really care about crews, cast, [the union] IATSE, Teamsters, all of us—writers, directors, people that have made their own work as artists.”
