Controversy Surrounds AI-Generated Ian Holm Cameo in 'Alien: Romulus'

'Alien: Romulus' brought a late actor back to life using AI. Fans hate it, but the director said Ian Holm's family gave their blessing.

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. When they break in, they discover that the company that owns the station, Weyland-Yutani, has experimented with the monstrous Xenomorphs, and they're forced to fight for survival. Along the way, scavenger Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her adopted android brother, Andy (David Jonsson), discover a half-melted robot called Rook (Holm). The robot is a nod to Holm's character in the original "Alien" movie, Ash, who is programmed to do what's best for the company rather than the crew. His 2024 counterpart, Rook, has the same purpose. Holms could have appeared in a single scene, but he features in several scenes as a secondary antagonist. Some fans criticized how Holm's appearance was executed, while others pointed out that he could not give his permission for his likeness to be used, arguing it could set a dangerous precedent. However, his family gave their permission for Holm, who is also known for playing Bilbo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" franchise to appear in "Alien: Romulus." Referring to Holm's widow, Sophie de Stempel, director Fede Álvarez told The Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Monday: "In the last 10 years after 'The Hobbit,' Ian Holm felt like Hollywood had turned its back on him and his widow felt he would have loved to be a part of this. He loved this character in particular." Álvarez said: "We did it all with a lot of respect and always with the authorization of his family, his children and his widow, who said, 'We would love to see his likeness again.'" The director confirmed that "80 to 90%" of the shots were achieved using an animatronic supplemented with CGI, and generative AI to make another actor's voice sound like Holm. Álvarez continued: "We're not bringing someone back to life and saying, 'Ian would have done it that way.' He would have obviously done it differently. We had an actor who was on the set, who worked on the dialogue, who worked with the actors. It's not like we skipped hiring an actor." AI has become a hot topic in Hollywood in the last few years over concerns that it will put creatives out of work, which was a major concern of the SAG-AFTRA union strikes in 2023. Some, like Scarlett Johansson, have taken a strong stance against the way AI can be used to co-opt a person's voice or likeness. The "Avengers" star lawyered up in May 2024 when OpenAI revealed a voice that sounded similar to her after she declined to voice one of the company's programs. But Álvarez doesn't think AI will be used to replace actors in the future largely because it's more expensive than hiring an actor. "Doing it this way requires a team of so many people and so many parts to get it done that it's never going to be really convenient."

Alien: Romulus director reveals how the team pulled off *that* surprise Alien cameo and defends use of AI

Alien: Romulus helmer Fede Alvarez and producer Ridley Scott have come forward to defend the movie's biggest franchise cameo and using AI to pull it off. Warning! This article contains major spoilers for Alien: Romulus, so make sure you're all caught up with the latest film before reading on! Just like every other movie in the franchise, Alien: Romulus includes an android character, Rain's brother Andy. But the siblings soon come across another synthetic, which massively resembles the franchise's original android Ash played by the late Ian Holm. However, as Holm sadly passed in 2020, the team had to rely on the use of CGI and AI to recreate his likeness, something that his widow and estate approved of beforehand. "We were not trying to do what can't be done, which is to reproduce that person's talent as an actor, because this is another character," said Alvarez in an interview with The LA Times. "The only thing they have in common is the likeness." Alvarez then went on to explain that he already had planned to create an animatronic paired with CGI facial enhancements. "It was 80 to 90% done by the puppeteers depending on the shot," said Alvarez, adding that CGI was added, "so that the animatronic had a little more life". But when it came to whose face would appear, Alvarez and Scott decided on Holm as he was the only android actor to have not returned to the franchise. "Ian Holm suddenly appearing as a company on-board robot was a great idea," added Scott. However, seeing as though the use of AI in movies is a hot topic right now, with many people disproving of it, Alvarez defended his use. "We had an actor who was on the set, who worked on the dialogue," said the director. "It's not like we skipped hiring an actor." In fact, Alvarez said he doesn't think it's feasible for AI to replace actors at all, but it was necessary in this circumstance. "Doing it this way requires a team of so many people and so many parts to get it done that it's never going to be really convenient." Quickly solidifying itself as one of the best alien movies, Alien: Romulus follows a group of young space colonizers who decide to board a derelict space station 20 years after Alien, and soon come face to face with the universe's most fearsome creatures. Romulus stars Civil War's Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, The Last of Us' Isabela Merced, and Aftersun's Spike Fearn. Alien: Romulus is out in theaters now. For more, check out our guide on how to watch the Alien movies in order, or the lowdown on movies and shows to watch before Alien: Romulus.

'Alien: Romulus's biggest cameo is its greatest error

Let's talk about Alien resurrection. No, not the fourth film in the Alien series, but rather the ghoulish real-life resurrection at the heart of Alien: Romulus. The film, directed by Fede Álvarez, brings a familiar face back to the Alien franchise: that of the late Sir Ian Holm. Holm played the Nostromo's synthetic science officer Ash in 1979's Alien. In Alien: Romulus, he "appears" as Rook, a Weyland-Yutani synthetic who is the same model as Ash, and who serves as the science officer for the Renaissance space station. I say "appears" because Holm, who passed away in June 2020, is unable to perform in Alien: Romulus. Instead, the film uses an animatronic body and CGI to create a simulacrum of Holm. Actor Daniel Betts also provided facial and vocal performances, which were then altered by generative AI and computer modeling to get closer to Holm's. The result lives in the depths of the uncanny valley, alongside Rogue One's revival of Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin and The Flash's cameo from Christopher Reeve's Superman. However, Alien: Romulus's Rook has far more screen time than these prior examples, playing first an expository role, then an antagonistic one for the film's young heroes. Each extended appearance is more unsettling than the last, to the point that I dreaded seeing Rook far more than I dreaded any Xenomorph. Not because Rook is a frightening character, but because his presence here snaps you out of an otherwise very fun movie, pointing instead to a disturbing filmmaking practice that mines cheap nostalgia from a late actor's work -- and that could have been entirely avoided in the first place. Let's start out with the obvious: No matter what permissions an estate may grant, a late actor cannot consent to having their likeness used in a movie. Doing so is an immediate violation of their personhood. In reviving them for the screen, you're creating a performance in a film they might never have agreed to do, with acting choices they might never have made. That's because the version of Holm we see in Alien: Romulus isn't really Holm. It's a puppet of a character he once played, being pulled out of the Alien toy box in order to score nostalgia points in a movie that's already too full of callbacks. Like Reeve and Cushing, Holm becomes an avatar for misguided fan service, instead of remaining an actor with agency. No wonder concerns about digital replicas of actors and their use after death became a key part of SAG-AFTRA's 2023 contract. The presence of Holm's likeness in Alien: Romulus is also a smack in the face to the film's own themes. Here is a movie that criticizes how corporations work employees to death, with one of its first scenes establishing that Weyland-Yutani keeps moving the goalposts of Rain Carradine's (Cailee Spaeny, Civil War, Priscilla) contract until it's effectively a death sentence. Yet Alien: Romulus is awfully comfortable working the image of an actor's body beyond death. Elsewhere, the great horror of the facehuggers and Xenomorphs remains the hijacking of our own bodies for alien needs. Does Alien: Romulus not see how its use of Holm's likeness is a similar kind of hijacking? An extra frustrating element of this situation is the fact that Alien: Romulus didn't even need Rook to be effective. Rain and her companions have no idea about the events of Alien on the Nostromo, or who Ash is, so seeing Rook means nothing to them in-world. His presence here is pure fan service, with no actual depth behind it. Sure, the sentiment would have been the same had Álvarez brought back Bishop (Lance Henriksen) from Aliens and Alien 3 or David (Michael Fassbender) from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, but at least then the director wouldn't have been manufacturing a performance from a deceased Holm. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Álvarez pointed to a "limited amount of synthetics" as being the reason why he and producer Ridley Scott decided to bring Rook back. Yet even if that limit prevented the creation of another original synthetic beyond Andy (David Jonsson, Industry, Rye Lane), there is still a solution for who could fulfill Rook's role onboard the Renaissance without stooping to fan service. Just bring in another version of Andy. After all, the movie is named Romulus, after famed Roman twins Remus and Romulus -- twin shenanigans would only make sense here! Yes, the Alien franchise has pulled the synthetic twins trick before, with Walter and David in Alien: Covenant. But out of all the callbacks Alien: Romulus has to other Alien films, I think double Andy has the potential to be the most rewarding. For starters, another synthetic who looks like Andy would actually mean something to Rain and her companions. They'd have more of a reason to trust him upon first meeting him, just by virtue of his resemblance to Rain's brother alone. That's already a step above fan service. Then, there's Andy's reaction to his own doppelgänger to consider. Aside from Rain, Andy is fairly isolated from the rest of the anti-synthetic crew, and from the rest of the Jackson's Star Colony. What happens if he sees someone who is exactly like him? Does he form some kind of synthetic kinship with his double, especially after learning that Rain plans to decommission him when she makes it to Yvaga? If there is any trust there, that adds an extra layer of heartbreak to the moment when Andy switches over to being just another vessel for doing Weyland-Yutani's bidding, powered by Rook's chip. Think of Andy's turn there like a reverse Walter and David situation. While David tried to turn Walter against his crew in order to free him from a life of service, Andy's turned against his crew in order to serve Weyland-Yutani. When it's his lookalike facilitating that turn, it becomes more of a betrayal of self, instead of a possible self-liberation. Twice the Andy is just one solution to the question of, "which synthetic should be onboard the Renaissance?" (A solution that would give Jonsson even more room to flex his impressive range.) There are countless others, including just making Rook an original synthetic and casting any other actor in the part. But there's only one truly incorrect answer, and that's the route Alien: Romulus takes.