Sam Altman on ‘Artificial’: Andrew Garfield ‘Did Walk Like Me’

Sam Altman has spoken publicly for the first time about “Artificial,” Luca Guadagnino’s film about his brief 2023 ouster from OpenAI, and says Andrew Garfield got at least one thing right. “He did walk like me,” the OpenAI CEO told Vanity Fair in a cover interview published Oct. 5, which Variety also reported on the same day the film premieres at the New York Film Festival.

Altman told Vanity Fair editor Mark Guiducci that he has seen the trailer, and that part of the movie was filmed on his street. “There were these notices on our street that there was going to be some filming or whatever. I didn’t realize what was going on. I paid no attention,” he said. “And then one morning I was walking down the street to get coffee and there were all these cameras and there was a guy dressed exactly like me with my same backpack walking so much that I felt I was in some weird glitch of the simulation or something.”

He said the two men waved at each other and moved on. Asked whether he had ever spoken with Garfield, Altman said, “I waved at him that one time and that was it.” Variety noted that Garfield told Esquire U.K. in August that he chose not to meet Altman for the role, saying he worked “off of the script and court transcripts and interviews and research.”

Altman did not expect the film to be a faithful portrait. “I will say from having watched the trailer, I don’t think they’re going for accuracy,” he told Vanity Fair. “They’re trying to make a good movie and maybe it will be good. I don’t know. Good as a movie. It will not be good as an accurate depiction.” Then he added: “Except for the walk.” He pushed back on one trailer moment showing his character entering a bunker with guns on the wall. “There’s no bunker with firearms on the wall,” Altman said. “That’s an example of an inaccuracy, but I did look kind of cool.” He said he has a “survivalist mindset” but no helicopter or submarine.

The interview also addressed how the film changed hands. Amazon MGM Studios dropped “Artificial” in June, months after Amazon’s $50 billion investment in OpenAI, and Neon picked it up, Variety reported. Asked whether he or anyone acting for him spoke to Amazon about the movie, Altman said, “No. I did not, and I don’t know of anyone else who did,” and said he never discussed it with Jeff Bezos. During the interview, Guiducci said Neon plans to release the film on Christmas Day.

Variety reported in September that the world premiere is set for Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, with Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, followed by a London Film Festival gala on Oct. 11. Guadagnino told Vulture last week that he isn’t worried about pushback from the people shown in the film, Variety said: “I’m not afraid.” More film news is on our Hollywood page.

Verification: Altman’s quotes come from Vanity Fair’s Oct. 5 interview transcript and Variety’s Oct. 5 report. Premiere venue and cast details come from Variety’s Sept. 1 NYFF report.