Mark Rylance Joins Andrew Garfield in Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI Movie ‘Artificial’
Oscar winner Mark Rylance has joined the sprawling cast of Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, Amazon MGM’s drama centered on the true-life story of artificial intelligence company OpenAI.
The casting marks a reunion between the actor and the director, with the two having previously worked together in Guadagnino’s Bones And All.
Artificial stars Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, and Monica Barbaro, who lead a cast that includes Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Hoffman, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Chris O’Dowd, Will Angus, Thaddea Graham, Nicholas Hamilton, Angus Imrie, and Will Price on the call sheet.
The movie is being described as a comedic drama, although it is a dramatized recounting of the tumultuous period at OpenAI in 2023 that saw CEO Sam Altman fired and rehired in a matter of days.
Altman co-founded OpenAI but in the fall of that year, amid mounting safety concerns regarding AI and reports of abusive behavior, he was ousted as the head of the company by his board. Five days later, after a revolt, he was reinstated. Garfield is playing Altman.
According to sources, Rylance will play Geoffrey Hinton, the Canadian computer scientist who was a mentor to Ilya Sutskever, being played by Borisov. Hinton came to eventually see the many dangers of AI and also won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024.
The movie is currently shooting.
Simon Rich wrote the script and is producing alongside Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford, as well as Jennifer Fox.
Rylance won a best supporting Oscar for his work in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, and later reunited with the director for Ready Player One and The BFG. Other film credits include Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
The actor, who has also won three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, three BAFTAs, and a SAG Award, is repped by CAA and Peikoff Mahan.
