Robin Williams has been dead for over 10 years. Now, one of his Mrs Doubtfire co-stars wants to use AI to revive his “iconic” voice, even though his daughter has already slammed the idea.
Hollywood is in the midst of an AI revolution, despite frequent backlashes and even legal battles regarding its use. For example, Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, a generative AI firm, accusing it of being a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
Another trend has attracted criticism: using artificial intelligence to digitally resurrect the dead, whether it’s an AI avatar of James Dean or Fortnite recreating James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader voice (for which he granted permission before his death).
In 2023, Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda criticized the “horrendous” use of AI to imitate her father’s voice. Nearly two years later, one of his former co-stars wants to do just that.
Mrs Doubtfire star wants AI to bring back Robin Williams
Matthew Lawrence, who played Chris (the middle sibling of Williams and Sally Fields’ characters’ children) in the 1993 classic, spoke to Entertainment Weekly at San Diego Comic-Con about the prospect of using AI to bring back Williams’ voice.
“I would love – now, obviously, with the respect and with the OK from his family – but I would love to do something really special with his voice because I know for a generation, that voice is just so iconic,” he said.
“It’s not just the fact that I knew him and worked with him and so it’s in my head – it’s in everybody’s head. And it would be so cool.”
Lawrence said he was inspired by one of Williams’ old commercials, which featured a “computerized voiceover… it’s kinda like this very contemporary, modern, almost sort of foreshadowing of what’s going on.”
“And it always stuck with me. And then, during his passing, with the AI coming out, I’m like, ‘Man, he’s gotta be the voice of A.I. He’s gotta be the voice in something.’ So yeah, I would love to do that,” he added.
In an earlier Instagram post (coming during SAG-AFTRA’s strike, campaigned for stricter AI regulation in film and television), Zelda wrote: “I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI.
“I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/re-create actors who cannot consent, like Dad.
“This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real. I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings.
“Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.
“These re-creations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”
In August 2024, California passed a law that requires consent from the estates of dead actors if a studio wants to use their likeness and/or voice in a project.
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