Although an AI replica might now get the same fee as a corporeal performer, using the replica can still save a lot of time and money. Instead of havi
Although an AI replica might now get the same fee as a corporeal performer, using the replica can still save a lot of time and money. Instead of having to pay a crew for a week’s work in the New Mexico sun, the Voorheeses created fresh scenes with Kilmer entirely using AI. In some of them, Kilmer’s character even speaks an real 1920s version of the Navajo language, although the actor himself didn’t speak the language when he was alive.
“As independent filmmakers, it’s the most freeing thing,” Coerte says. “I love working with talent. But AI allows us to really reduce the elements that make it so complicated and expensive to tell a story. My friends feel lucky if they get one movie or one pilot a year. If you’re working with filmmakers of the modern era, you’re gonna be able to make 10 feature films a year.” John believes that the conventional way of making films—shooting on a set with a human cast and crew—is going to become “a niche, bespoke thing, like theater productions.” As Deep as the Grave’s production process, meanwhile, will become the norm.
To an AI skeptic, the Voorhees brothers’ manic enthusiasm for this tech can feel chilling. “One of the best things you learn very quickly is to actually just let the AI do as much of it on its own as possible,” Coerte raves. “It often comes up with even better ideas than you come up with. It’s trained on the best of everything.” The duo walks me through some of the steps they took to transform an elderly photo of Kilmer into a walking, talking cinematic character. From what I see, this performance wouldn’t exactly win him an Oscar—and thanks to the Academy’s fresh rule stating that acting nominations must be “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent,” it wouldn’t be eligible anyway.
In life, Kilmer took his craft very seriously, to the point of being labeled “difficult” within the industry. (“In an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project…I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry.) Isn’t AI taking away the very thing he cared about most: the human artistry inherent in acting?
Maybe. But Coerte insists that he spent a lot of time studying Kilmer’s many screen performances to get his virtual version right. “You start to pick up on the mannerisms, and I made a list: What are Val’s unique things he does when he’s angry, when he’s happy, when he’s upset? So I’m cataloging all of his different emotional states and then using them, depending on what the scene requires.”
Mercedes sees the AI replica as something else altogether. “My dad looked at it as an animation that was really accurate, and he did not think of that as comparable to acting,” she says. Allowing filmmakers to feed his image and voice into an AI agent was a way for him to stay in the game as his body failed him. “In every area of life, my dad would not accept that there were limitations. He’d be like, ‘What do you mean I can’t talk? Let’s find a way to make me talk.’”
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