Nicolas Cage warns Hollywood actors that AI ‘wants to take your instrument’

October 25, 2024:

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Nicolas Cage continues to share his fears about artificial intelligence in Hollywood.

At the 25th Newport Beach Film Festival on Sunday, the actor gave a speech ahead of his Icon Award reception during the Honors Brunch where he emphasized the need to control your own image and performance as AI rises in popularity with studios.

“There is a new technology in town. It’s a technology that I didn’t have to contend with for 42 years until recently. But these 10 young actors, this generation, most certainly will be, and they are calling it ‘EBDR.’ This technology wants to take your instrument. We are the instruments as film actors. We are not hiding behind guitars and drums,” Cage said, per Deadline.

EBDR stands for “employment-based digital replica,” one of two digital replicas allowed following the deal settled by the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and the studios following last year’s dual strikes.

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Nicolas Cage warned actors at a recent film festival that artificial intelligence used by studios “wants to take your instrument.” (Jesse Grant/Variety via Getty Images)

Per the rules in the contract, an “EBDR is one created in connection with your employment on a motion picture” and may require something like having an actor’s body scanned. Compensation is based on how much a performer would have worked in person for the scenes the digital replica is used in, and performers are entitled to residuals from their replica’s appearance in the finished product.

“The studios want this so that they can change your face after you’ve already shot it — they can change your face, they can change your voice, they can change your line deliveries, they can change your body language, they can change your performance,” Cage warned.

“This technology wants to take your instrument. We are the instruments as film actors.”

— Nicolas Cage

He continued, “I’m asking you, if you’re approached by a studio to sign a contract, permitting them to use EBDR on your performance, I want you to consider what I am calling ‘MVMFMBMI’ — my voice, my face, my body, my imagination — my performance, in response. Protect your instrument.”

Cage told the audience to “protect your instrument.” (Jesse Grant/Variety via Getty Images)

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The Oscar winner has expressed his concerns about the technology a few times in the past, as well.

In July, during an interview with The New Yorker, Cage said he needed to leave to do “a scan” for an upcoming role, but admitted the concept made him nervous.

“Well, they have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change— I don’t know. They’re just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it via digital AI. … God, I hope not AI. I’m terrified of that. I’ve been very vocal about it,” he said during the interview.

Cage has been vocal in the past about his concerns over AI, including being wary of having his likeness scanned for a project he worked on. (Leon Bennett/Getty Images for NEON)

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“And it makes me wonder, you know, where will the truth of the artists end up? Is it going to be replaced? Is it going to be transmogrified? Where’s the heartbeat going to be?”

“I mean, what are you going to do with my body and my face when I’m dead? I don’t want you to do anything with it,” he said.

The actor also told The Associated Press during an interview in December 2023 that he was concerned about his life rights, and the use of celebrities’ likenesses after death by AI, calling the digital recreations “inhumane.”

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“Someone owns the rights to James Dean right now. They could put him in a Vietnam movie, which is what they’re trying to do. … To me, it’s inhumane, OK. It’s inhumane. It doesn’t get any more inhumane than AI. People are going to lose jobs. And I’m sure he, from the beyond, would not be happy about it, you know?” Cage asserted.

Last year, the BBC reported that an AI version of Dean will appear in a film titled “Back to Eden.” In 2019, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Magic City Films announced the late actor would appear in a role in its film “Finding Jack,” but it ultimately fell through.

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