She shimmered in Hollywood’s silent movie era and lit up the first talkies – now Greta Garbo may be about to star in cinema’s new AI age.
uncertain
Garbo → shimmer → age
More than a century after her screen debut and decades after her ashes were laid to rest in a Swedish woodland cemetery, the Hollywood superstar’s descendants are ready to consider an AI version of her taking a 21st-century film role.
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descendants → lay → role
Her likeness has already been reanimated for an advert for a Swedish industrial company, using AI generation technology.
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likeness → reanimate → technology
The practice some critics call “ghostploitation” has also been used in the case of the actor Val Kilmer, who died last year.
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who → call → actor
Asked if the AI Garbo could be cast in other roles, Craig Reisfield, one of three relatives who manage her legacy, told the Guardian: “I won’t say no, especially having seen what I’ve seen.
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I → ask → what
It’s pretty incredible and lifelike.
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It → ’ → ?
So what’s to say that you can’t bring Greta Garbo back in some kind of fashion in a film role?”
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you → ’ → role
Reisfield said he was “flabbergasted” when he saw the AI version of his great-aunt created for publicity for the ball-bearings giant SKF.
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version → say → giant
The connection comes because Garbo’s second-ever screen role was in a 1921 promotional film involving the Gothenburg-based company.
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role → come → company
While Garbo was the definition of glamour in Hollywood’s golden age, appearing as a famous ballerina in Grand Hotel (1932) and as a doomed courtesan in Camille (1936), the 99-second AI performance for SKF is intercut with shots of ball-bearings.
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performance → appear → bearings
However, the quality of the AI production has prompted the possibility, at least, of a greater digital comeback.
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quality → prompt → comeback
“I was totally impressed: the mannerisms that they could capture and manipulate, her dress, facial images and even her voice,” said Reisfield, a Swedish-American who used to drive for Garbo and saw her often for family occasions when she lived in New York.
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she → capture → York
“It was startling what they could do and very impactful.
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they → do → what
And it was touching, from my perspective having known her.”
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it → touch → her
A far cry from the hand-cranked cameras that captured Garbo’s early work, the SKF performance was conjured by humans prompting AI models including China’s Seedream and Google’s Nano Banana Pro.
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performance → crank → Seedream
Unusually for AI film-making, the creators did not feed moving or still images of Garbo into the AI because the material was protected by copyright.
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material → feed → copyright
Instead, they used text prompts to create her likeness, including her ice-blue eyes and wavy blond bob.
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they → use → eyes
A human actor then played her role with her AI-generated appearance overlaid.
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appearance → play → role
Her voice was recreated from a recording from an early film.
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voice → recreate → film
The resulting version of Garbo appears to have gone beyond the “uncanny valley” – the problem for AI film-makers in which the closer to an actual likeness an AI rendering becomes, the more strangely implausible it seems.
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it → result → likeness
AI Garbo’s lines, however, are not perhaps quite up to the standards of those given to her by MGM studio writers.
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lines → give → writers
At one point, she sounds like Liz Truss complaining about the “disgrace” of Britain’s cheese imports, when she says “around 20% of all global energy is lost to friction: a terrible waste”.
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% → sound → friction
Several big film studios are investing in AI startups or collaborating with new AI studios.
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studios → invest → studios
Veteran directors including Ron Howard and Paul Schrader are working on AI-enabled films, while a new generation of AI-native film-makers such as Kavan the Kid and Gossip Goblin are using AI to build huge audiences outside the conventional studio system.
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generation → include → system
Asked whether the real Garbo would have wanted to continue performing as an AI-enabled actor, Reisfield said: “She was at the forefront of cinema in the silent film era.
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She → ask → era
She made the transition to ‘talkies’ and dominated box office receipts.
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She → make → receipts
“So to imagine her as an AI-enabled actor given her track record and ability to captivate and connect with audiences of both men and women isn’t inconceivable.”
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imagine → imagine → men
Reisfield said the custodians of the rights to Garbo’s voice, name, image and publicity aimed to “preserve, protect, and enhance” her legacy and were “very discerning” on partnerships.
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custodians → say → partnerships
Her likeness has been posthumously used by the fashion houses Ferragamo, Gucci and Louis Vuitton but the AI performance for SKF is her first in moving images.
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performance → use → images
Whatever the future holds for AI Garbo, it kept to the true spirit of the actor by signing off the ball-bearing advert with her immortal line from Grand Hotel: “I want to be alone.”
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I → hold → Hotel
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