Two answers, two different questions
The headline answer was the confident one. Asked whether AI could eventually replace human performers, Cristóbal Valenzuela did not hedge: "Yeah, absolutely. I think it's already happening in a way." He described AI as a new medium of expression and a new medium of storytelling, and Variety reported the comments provoked one of the biggest debates of the conference.
The second answer came when the conversation turned from whether a performer can be generated to whether one can be directed. Richard Kerris had recalled a director's argument about Marlon Brando improvising with a cat during "The Godfather" — a moment nobody wrote, prompted or planned. That craft, Kerris said, is something he does not think will ever be lost. Valenzuela's reply answered that narrower question. "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."
These are not the same claim, and the second is not a retraction of the first. Generating synthetic human imagery is one capability. Replacing an actor's contribution to a production — performance, direction, the work required across a scene — is a much broader claim, and Variety's account does not establish that it has happened in a specific production. Directing a generated performance the way a director works with an actor is a third claim again, and it is the only one Valenzuela placed in the future.
A prediction with a business attached
Context matters for how much weight to give the forecast. Variety reported that Runway announced a partnership with Lionsgate in September 2024 to develop a custom model trained on the studio's catalogue, and that the relationship expanded in June 2026 with Lionsgate taking an equity stake. That commercial relationship gives Valenzuela a clear interest in the growth of AI-generated video. It does not establish that AI has already replaced actors in a production.
His essays set out the underlying thesis plainly: the cost of creating a credible frame keeps falling, high-production-value content is the last expensive layer, and eventually the number of seconds generated will converge with the number consumed. That is a coherent worldview, and parts of it are observable — generated footage is cheaper than it was, and studios are signing deals. But a worldview is not a measurement. "Already happening in a way" is the least substantiated part of the claim. Variety's report does not identify a production in which AI replaced a cast, a named casting workflow, or a specific category of performers displaced by Runway's technology. Synthetic performers can be generated; that is not, by itself, evidence that human actors have been replaced in production. And nothing was launched in Turin: no model, no casting product, no production. Gen-4, cited in the report, dates from March 2025.
The argument in the hallway
The sharper disagreement at View was not about acting. Variety reported attendees from visual effects, games and animation expressing anger between sessions over the material used to train generative models. Valenzuela's answer to a question about Runway's training data was that calling a model a database is a core misbelief: models learn from representation, they do not store the work.
That distinction may describe how the technology functions. It does not settle the question the artists were asking, which is about permission and payment. Variety also noted that a US federal judge had approved a US$1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors, while a proposed visual-artists' class action naming Runway, Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt was still proceeding. The two are distinct proceedings, with different claims and different parties; the settlement does not decide the artists' case. A replacement debate that starts with performers tends to end with the people whose work taught the system to perform.
For working actors, the practical reading is modest. Neither "replacement has arrived" nor "replacement is impossible" is what the reporting supports. An executive whose company sells video-generation technology expects synthetic performers to become more directable, said so on stage, and placed the directing part in the future. A synthetic face in a generated clip is not evidence that an actor's role has been replaced in a production. Planning around what was actually established is more useful than planning around the headline.
Sources
- [1] Variety, as reproduced by Life News Agency — "AI Could 'Absolutely' Replace Human Actors, Runway CEO Says at Turin's View Conference" (published 20 October 2026, 07:53 UTC; syndicated report read in full). All quotations from Valenzuela and Kerris, the account of the conference exchange, the attendee reactions, and the Lionsgate and legal background are attributed to this report. No conference recording or independent transcript was reviewed; the original Variety article was not directly read.Read source
- [2] VIEW Conference 2026 programme (viewconference.it) — source for the session's scheduled date and time: Friday 16 October 2026, 10:15–11:15 CET, Fucine room.Read source