Tom Hollander says he’s not worried about AI actors replacing real ones and thinks the creation of synthetic performers will only boost the value of authentic, live performance.

The 58-year-old plays entrepreneur Cameron Beck in The Iris Affair, a drama about the world’s most powerful quantum computer.

Dubbed “Charlie Big Potatoes” – it could eat ChatGPT for breakfast.

It’s a timely theme in a world where Artificial Intelligence is advancing at pace, and just last week, the world’s first AI starlet – Tilly Norwood – made her Hollywood debut.

Hollander is not impressed. He suggests rumours that Norwood is in talks with talent agencies are “a lot of old nonsense”, and questions the logistics of working with an AI actor, asking “Would it be, like a blue screen?”

Norwood – a pretty, 20-something brunette – is the creation of Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden and her AI production studio Particle6. It’s planning to launch its own AI talent studio, Xicoia, soon.

Hollander tells Sky News: “I’m perhaps not scared enough about it. I think the reaction against it is quite strong. And I think there’ll be some legal stuff. Also, it needs to be proven to be good. I mean, the little film that they did around her, I didn’t think was terribly interesting.”

The sketch – shared on social media and titled AI Commissioner – poked fun at the future of TV development in a post-AI world.

Stars including Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne and Whoopi Goldberg have objected to Norwood’s creation too, as has US actors’ union SAG-AFTRA.

Hollander compares watching an AI performer to watching a magic trick: “You know with your brain that you’re watching something that’s bullshit… If they don’t have to tell you, that would be difficult. But if they’ve told you it’s AI, then you’ll watch it with a different part of your brain.”

Always screen-ready, with no ego and low salary requirements, Norwood is being billed as a studio’s dream hire. In line with Hollywood’s exacting standards for female beauty, she’ll also never age.

Hollander’s Iris Affair co-star Niamh Algar, who plays genius codebreaker Iris Nixon in the show, doesn’t feel threatened by this new kid on the block, poking fun at Norwood’s girl-next-door persona: “She’s a nightmare to work with. She’s always late. Takes ages in her trailer.”

But Algar adds: “I don’t want to work with an AI. No.”

She goes on, “I don’t think you can replicate. She’s a character, she’s not an actor.”

Algar says the flaw in AI’s performance – scraped from the plethora of real performances that have come before it – is that we, as humans, are “excited by unpredictability”.

She says AI is “too perfect, we like flaws”.

Hollander agrees: “There’ll be a fight for authenticity. People will be going, ‘I refuse makeup. Give me less makeup, I want less makeup because AI can’t possibly mimic the blemishes on my face'”.

He even manages to pull a positive from the AI revolution: “It means that live performance will be more exciting than ever before…

“I think live performance is one antidote, and it’s certainly true in music, isn’t it? I mean, partly because they have to go on tour [to make money], but also because there’s just nothing like it and you can’t replace it.”

Algar enthusiastically adds: “Theatre’s going to kick off. It’s going to be so hot.”

As for using AI themselves, while Hollander admits he’s used it recently for “a bit of problem solving”, Algar says she tries to avoid it, worrying “part of my brain is going to go dormant”.

Indeed, the impact of technology on our brains is a source of constant inspiration – and torture – for The Iris Affair screenwriter Neil Cross.

Cross, who also created psychological crime thriller Luther, tells Sky News: “We are at a hinge point in history.”

He says: “I’m interested in what technological revolution does to people. I have 3am thoughts about the poor man who invented the like button.

“He came up with a simple invention whose only intention was to increase levels of human happiness. How could something as simple as a like button go wrong? And it went so disastrously wrong.

“It’s caused so much misery and anxiety and unhappiness in the human race entire. If something as simple as a small like button can have such dire, cascading, unexpected consequences, what is this moment of revolution going to lead to?”

Indeed, Cross says he lives in “a perpetual state of terror”.

He goes on: “I’m always going to be terrified of something. The world’s going to look very different. I think in 50 or 60 years’ time.

He takes a brief pause, then self-edits: “Probably 15 years’ time”.

With The Iris Affair’s central themes accelerating out of science fiction, and into reality, Cross’s examination of our instinctual fear of the unknown, coupled with our desire for knowledge that might destroy us is a powerful mix.

Cross concludes: “We’re in danger of creating God. And I think that’s the ultimate danger of AI. God doesn’t exist – yet.”

The Iris Affair is available from Thursday 16 October on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW

Future Hall of Fame first baseman Albert Pujols met with Los Angeles Angels general manager Perry Minasian in St. Louis about the team’s managerial vacancy Thursday night, a source familiar with the process told ESPN on Friday, confirming an initial report by The Athletic.

A formal offer has not been made, sources cautioned, though Pujols has been considered a top candidate since the Angels declined the 2026 option on manager Ron Washington’s contract last week.

Pujols, 45, has expressed strong interest in managing at the big league level for years and led a Dominican winter ball team, the Leones del Escogido, to a championship in January. Pujols was previously named manager for his native Dominican Republic in next year’s World Baseball Classic, though he would likely rescind that role if he lands a big league job this offseason.

The Angels are one of six teams looking for new managers. Other clubs have inquired about Pujols, though the Angels are the only team he has formally met about managing thus far, according to a source.

Pujols signed a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Angels in December 2011 that included a 10-year, $10 million personal-services contract that kicked in after he retired. What becomes of that deal would likely be part of any financial negotiations that would inevitably take place with the Angels.

Pujols has been a special guest instructor at Angels spring training each of the past three years and is considered a prime candidate by both Minasian, who held him in high regard even after releasing him in May 2021, and Angels owner Arte Moreno.

One of the greatest players of the 2000s, Pujols won three MVPs and two World Series championships in a 22-year career that included 703 home runs, 2,218 RBIs and 3,384 hits. His best years came in St. Louis, but the Angels could give him his first shot to manage.