Runway's Cristóbal Valenzuela says AI could replace actors, then says not now on directing them

At View Conference in Turin, Runway's co-CEO said AI replacing actors is "already happening in a way," then conceded models cannot yet be directed like a performer. Every quote comes from one Variety report.

Someone in the audience at View Conference in Turin asked Cristóbal Valenzuela, co-CEO of Runway, whether AI could eventually replace human actors. "Yeah, absolutely," he said. "I think it's already happening in a way." He went on to call AI "a new medium of expression" and "a new medium of storytelling."

Beside him in the fireside chat, titled "Every Pixel Will Be Generated," Nvidia's Richard Kerris pushed back. He recalled a director's argument that a moment like Marlon Brando improvising with a cat on the set of The Godfather could never be ordered up from a machine, and called that craft something "I don't think we'll ever lose." Valenzuela's reply was more careful than his first answer: "Not now, but I think models are going to get probably to a point where you can probably direct them in a very similar way."

That second answer is the one worth keeping, because a performance nobody can direct is not a performance yet, and Runway's boss conceded as much on stage. The yes still matters, though: Runway sells its tools to studios, so its co-CEO was also telling buyers where he thinks this goes. Asked by Variety about the material models learn from, he said they are "not databases" and learn "from representation," while Runway is one of the companies named in a proposed class action by visual artists who say their work was used without permission or payment.

What he never spelled out is what "already happening in a way" refers to: which productions, and which roles. Every quote here comes from one Variety reporter's account of the session, and no recording is public yet.

Source: Variety, reporting from View Conference in Turin, Oct 20, 2026.