Oscar winners Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have inked a deal with AI company ElevenLabs to create digital replicas of their voices. This was announced on the AI company’s website.
The star of the film “The Gentlemen” has been an “investor and one of the early supporters” of the platform for many years. He plans to use its technology to launch a Spanish version of the newsletter Lyrics of Livin.
“I am proud to have been an investor in ElevenLabs for several years. It has been amazing to watch the company’s growth and innovation from its early days to where they are now,” the actor stated.
Caine has placed his voice on the company’s new marketplace, Iconic Voice. The platform allows producers and brands to license it for use in audiobooks, advertising campaigns, and other projects.
The digitized voice of the actor joins a collection of digital replicas of deceased celebrities: Judy Garland, John Wayne, Babe Ruth, and Alan Turing.
First Lady Melania Trump collaborated with ElevenLabs to create an audiobook of her memoirs.
Against the Grain
Renowned actors are divided into two camps: supporters of the commercial use of artificial intelligence and its opponents.
Three-time Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro, at a screening of Netflix’s “Frankenstein” in New York, declared:
“To hell with AI!”
Later in an interview, he said he would rather die than use generative artificial intelligence in films.
“I’m 61 years old, and I hope I can remain indifferent to its use until I die,” the director added.
Oscar winner Emma Thompson expressed “strong irritation” regarding Microsoft’s AI assistant’s suggestion to rewrite her scripts:
“I don’t need you to bloody rewrite what I just wrote!”
“Avengers” star and Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. last October vowed to sue any future executives who create digital replicas of his Iron Man character using generative AI without permission.
Boris Rehlinger, the French voice of Ben Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix, leads the TouchePasMaVF initiative, which aims to protect human dubbing from being replaced by artificial intelligence.
“I feel threatened, although my voice has not yet been replaced by AI,” he said.
In October 2024, Nicolas Cage urged young actors not to succumb to pressure from employers and to fight against the use of AI and EBDR to alter or manipulate their performances.
EBDRs allow for the creation of a digital replica of an actor with their participation. For example, a “de-aged” Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford in the 2023 film “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
Previously, the Hollywood actor stated that his cameo as Superman in the 2023 film “The Flash” did not resemble what he had played.
“It’s inhuman. Nothing can be more inhuman than artificial intelligence,” he noted.
Back in July, Cage expressed concern about the prospects of artificial intelligence in Hollywood.
In the same month, video game voice actors and motion capture specialists went on strike after negotiations failed to protect workers’ rights concerning AI use.