Andrew Garfield could not contain his laughter after a few members of the “Daily Show” audience reacted Thursday night with audible suspicion and surprise to learning he recently played OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Garfield stopped by “The Daily Show” this week to discuss his new film, “The Uprising.” The drama, which is based on true events, stars Garfield as the leader of a peasants’ revolt against the tyranny of King Richard II in 1300s England. Comedy Central host Michael Kosta described Garfield’s character in the film as a “very empathetic” man.
“But you also just finished playing Sam Altman,” Kosta remarked. Before Garfield could respond, members of the studio audience reacted audibly to that revelation, much to Garfield and Kosta’s delight. Not only did Garfield break into laughter and imitate the reactions to his Altman casting, but Kosta also joked that the actor may have just lost the audience’s favor.
“Most of your characters have this empathetic [vibe] that I love and respond to,” Kosta noted, asking, “But what was it like playing Sam Altman? He doesn’t feel like that type of character.”
“Hey, man!” Garfield responded with a laugh. On actually playing Altman, the actor then said, “We’re all in need of some soul work. We’re all in need of community. We’re all in need of healing. We’re all wounded, and we’re all of us, in unconscious ways, probably enacting that woundedness on other people that we are not aware of. And I don’t think any of us are any exceptions.”
Garfield stars as Altman in “Artificial,” the new film from “Challengers” director Luca Guadagnino, which dramatizes the turbulent period in OpenAI’s history when Altman was famously fired and then rehired by the tech company. The film was dropped by its original distributor, Amazon MGM, this past summer. However, it was then picked up by Neon and is slated to hit select theaters in the U.S. on Christmas Day, following its world premiere at this year’s New York Film Festival on Oct. 5.
While speaking about the forthcoming film, Garfield described himself as “healthily afraid” of the current moment, which is being shaped in no small part by Altman and his fellow tech executives’ ongoing efforts to further integrate AI into everyday culture.
“I think it feels like it’s a race to the bottom,” Garfield said. “If there was actual communication and an integrative kind of process that had integrity [where] the people who are running these companies valued human life more than the bottom line of their companies’ shareholders’ stock value, then we would have a chance.”
“But it does seem like we’re in the part of history when the leaders care about the bottom line more than they do about any human life,” the actor somberly noted.
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