Jodie Foster calls Brad Pitt’s biggest movie an AI creation

Jodie Foster knows her way round Hollywood. She’s been on the scene since the 1970s—child star, Oscar winner (twice), director, producer, you name it. If there’s one thing she’s seen change in all those decades, it’s the way films actually get made. This week, she waded directly into the (increasingly exhausting) debate about artificial intelligence in film during a panel chat called 'Who Owns the Future of Hollywood?' at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Cue Foster giving the side-eye to Brad Pitt’s blockbuster racing film, 'F1', and wondering—only half-jokingly—if it really was made by a computer.

Foster’s Suspicions: Did AI Write 'F1'?

She wasn’t outright accusing the filmmakers of using AI to churn out the script, but she didn’t exactly keep her curiosity to herself. Here’s how Foster put it during the panel:

'I don't say this disparagingly—how could I? This movie went on to make millions of dollars. But I look at a movie like F1 and I’m like, F1 was made by AI. Wasn't it?'

For Foster, the thing about 'F1'—directed by Joseph Kosinski, starring Pitt and Damson Idris, and bankrolled by Apple—wasn’t that it felt artificial because of the tech, but because its storytelling was suspiciously, almost mathematically neat. She pointed out the film’s structure was textbook screenwriting—a bit too tidy, a bit too perfect, performers hitting their emotional queues as if an algorithm was gently nudging them behind the scenes. Her words:

'The structure was exactly the structure that you would learn in school. The actors say the lines exactly the way it would be written if a computer was writing exactly what would be the right thing for that time. And they were able to dominate the technology to make something big and beautiful and potentially where a lot of the information comes from other places.'

Commercial and Awards Success (AI or Not)

Whether crafted by code or not, 'F1' cleaned up at the box office, pulling in over $634 million worldwide. It was also an awards darling: Best Sound at the Oscars, plus nominations for Best Picture, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects. No small feat, even if a few viewers found it a bit too 'engineered'.

For what it’s worth, there’s zero public evidence the film was actually written or assembled by AI, much as Foster’s instincts—and a fair chunk of the internet—might say otherwise. If anything, her actual point lands here: a film doesn’t have to use machines to feel like it was.

Brass Tacks: Actors, AI, and Ownership

Foster’s concerns go beyond the odd suspiciously smooth script. She’s also eyeing the way AI is pushing into actors’ territory. She’s sharp on how tech companies might hoover up actors’ faces and voices for reuse, multiplying them endlessly—sometimes without fair pay, oversight, or any kind of creative dignity. Her take:

'Hopefully, things like unions will be able to come in and say, you can use my actor 20 times, but you’re going to pay him 20 times. And I think that's fair. I think that if we can come up with a way of saying we will participate with technology as long as we still have the dignity of the craft that we make, right?'

Not really a radical idea, just solid old-fashioned union logic—don’t get exploited by the robots.

Foster and AI in Her Own Films

In a twist, Foster’s not a total AI luddite. Her own recent project, 'A Private Life' (Rebecca Zlotowski’s 2025 release), actually used AI for a dream sequence. Her stance seems to be: use the tools, but don’t let the tools use you.

'What we all would love is that filmmakers would be able to dominate AI, and never lose sight of that. If we are able to dominate AI consistently over time, we will be able to make things that reflect us, and we can make things better.'

Not Alone: The Wider Grumble About AI in Film

Foster’s not the only one wary of computers taking over creative work:

• Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli once described an AI animation test as 'an insult to life itself' after watching it in the 2016 documentary 'Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki'
• Tim Burton’s called AI knockoffs of his visual style 'a robot taking your humanity, your soul' (Los Angeles Times)
• Scarlett Johansson has also pushed back on unauthorised uses of her voice and likeness

Back in the studio trenches, Apple’s Tim Cook told Variety there’s already talk of an 'F1' sequel, with the success of the first film giving Apple’s film arm a proper shot in the arm. Still, the debate whether Hollywood is turning into a factory for machine-generated stories isn’t going away anytime soon.