Andrew Garfield has played Spider-Man, a Jesuit priest, and a man dying of AIDS-era heartbreak. Now he's playing the CEO of OpenAI. Per Deadline, Garfield spoke about taking on Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino's "Artificial" as the film made its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, and he was candid about what he hoped the movie would do: shine a light on the risks posed by OpenAI and its CEO.
That's a pretty pointed mission statement for a red-carpet chat. It's also the most interesting thing about the project.
What the Film Is Actually About
"Artificial" explores the founding of OpenAI and the launch of ChatGPT, per Deadline's report. The film also touches on the boardroom power struggle at the company and Altman's reinstatement as CEO, which, if you were online during that chaotic stretch, you may remember as a weekend that felt like a season finale.
Neon is releasing the film theatrically on Dec. 25, which, as a matter of positioning, is a pretty loud choice. Christmas Day is awards-season real estate. It suggests Neon wants this treated as a prestige conversation piece rather than a quick tech-gossip cash-in. That's my read, not anything Neon has said.
Garfield's Altman: Calculating, Manipulative, Nihilistic
Here's where it gets spicy. According to the Deadline report, Garfield portrays Altman as calculating, manipulative, and nihilistic. Those are strong words to attach to a real, living person, and the film's stated mission is to interrogate who controls AI and our data.
The more intriguing wrinkle is Garfield's own journey with the character. The material around the premiere points to a tension: Garfield reportedly had a positive first impression of Altman before the darker portrayal took shape. It's hard not to wonder how much of the performance lives in that gap, between the person who seems like a savior in the public imagination and the cautionary tale the film wants to tell.
That gap is, frankly, the whole genre of the tech biopic. Audiences walk in knowing the charming public version. The drama comes from watching the movie slowly argue that charm is a tool.
The Responsibility Problem of Playing the Living
Playing a real, controversial figure comes with homework and ethical guardrails. Garfield's preparation is the headline of the Deadline piece, and it raises the question every biopic of a living tech figure faces: where does research end and interpretation begin?
To be clear, a film's portrayal is an interpretation, and Garfield's description of Altman as manipulative and nihilistic is his and the film's characterization, not an established fact about the real person. That distinction matters, and it's one the movie's marketing will have to live with as the release approaches.
A Counterweight in the Boardroom
The coup subplot gives the film its dramatic spine, and Ilya Sutskever reportedly figures in it as a kind of moral counterweight. Every good corporate drama needs one: the person in the room who asks whether they should, not just whether they can. Think of it as the conscience role, the one that sits across from the charismatic lead and makes the audience squirm.
It's also a smart structural choice for a film that, per Deadline, aims to balance comedy with horror when depicting AI's existential stakes. The setup sounds like a dark satire with a pit in its stomach, which tracks with Guadagnino's reputation for making glossy, unsettling movies about people who want things badly.
Why This Lands Right Now
AI governance and corporate accountability are firmly in the cultural spotlight, and OpenAI's internal power struggles remain a hot-button topic. A major theatrical film arriving in the middle of that discourse is either perfect timing or a recipe for a very loud argument. Probably both.
The real test will be whether "Artificial" can do what the best tech dramas do: make you feel the stakes of an industry most people only experience through a chat window. Garfield, for his part, has made his intentions clear. Whether audiences leave the theater unsettled, entertained, or just checking their privacy settings will be the real review.
Either way, the man who once swung through Manhattan is now stepping into a boardroom, and the cobwebs he's fighting this time are much harder to see.
