Jodie Foster Says F1 'Was Made by AI' at Aspen Festival
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- Jodie Foster said at the Aspen Ideas Festival that the 2025 Brad Pitt film F1 "was made by AI," noting actors delivered lines as if "a computer was writing exactly what would be the right thing for that time" and describing the script as following the structure "you would learn in school"
- F1, directed by Joseph Kosinski and written by Ehren Kruger, earned more than $634M globally and won the Oscar for Best Sound alongside nominations for Best Picture, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects
- Foster identified pre-visualization and storyboarding as "small helpful things" where AI could help, and revealed her 2025 French mystery A Private Life, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, featured an AI-facilitated dream sequence she said turned out well despite images that "made no sense"
- Foster acknowledged AI is "getting rid of a lot of jobs" in Hollywood but said she hopes unions will enforce per-use payment for actors — "you can use my actor 20 times, but you're going to pay him 20 times"
- SAG-AFTRA has endorsed the Trump administration's AI policy framework, which calls for Congress to enact legislation covering IP rights, First Amendment protections, parental controls, AI workforce development, and removing legal barriers limiting AI innovation
- Trump signed an executive order last month creating a voluntary framework in which AI companies provide the government with 30-day access to new models before release
- Variety and other outlets ran the story with nearly identical framing — Foster calling F1 'made by AI' — and the article's comments section pushed the joke further, with readers joking about other AI-made films
Why it matters: A two-time Oscar winner publicly calling a $634M-grossing, Oscar-winning studio film AI-made is a notable endorsement of how far generative tools have come — and her call for union-enforced per-usage payment for actors aligns with the SAG-AFTRA-endorsed federal AI framework Trump signed last month. The consensus across Variety, the original outlet, and commenters treats her suspicion as plausible rather than fringe.
