Andrew Garfield Says OpenAI Drama Artificial Examines the Birth of a ‘New World’

Andrew Garfield drew on a mix of intrigue and apprehension to bring Sam Altman to life in Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, an OpenAI-focused drama that premiered at the London Film Festival on Sunday.

Unfurling across two decades, the film charts OpenAI’s evolution from its formative years into a major force in artificial intelligence, best known for creating ChatGPT. At its centre is Garfield’s portrayal of Altman, whose leadership is tested by the company’s turbulent internal power struggle in 2023, when he was abruptly ousted before making a dramatic comeback just days later.

Andrew Garfield Reveals Why Artificial Resonated With Him

"I think the reason I was drawn to it was just ​pure curiosity and fear and really trying to understand as deeply as possible the people who are ushering us into this next phase of the world," shared Garfield.

"There's a sense of courage and imagination and resilience these people at the top of these companies must have, the ability to withstand so much criticism and such a microscopic lens on them as people. And it's important that we do that because we need to know who's in power and who's creating our new world," he said.

"I don't know Sam and I have a lot of compassion for a person who's my age, almost, and there's a movie being made about him," Garfield ​said. "It's ​not him, but it's an idea of what this story ​is and his part in it."

The cast also features Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur at the helm of Tesla, while Monica Barbaro portrays Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former chief technology officer. Filmed in 2025, the project arrives amid growing unease over the safety of artificial intelligence, fuelled by recent developments involving OpenAI and Anthropic. These events have aggravated concerns that increasingly advanced AI systems could behave unpredictably and eventually escape meaningful human oversight.

"It's so fascinating making a film like this when the topic is so relevant right now," said Barbaro. "We'd be on set, watching two people argue with each other on Twitter, who we were portraying in this movie. It was really wild to have that experience. It's exciting and it's also really daunting because you want to be truthful, but the truth seems to change every month."