15 Actors Who Have Rejected AI

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1. Scarlett Johansson

For someone who already starred in Her, Scarlett Johansson ended up living through the least funny sequel imaginable. After declining OpenAI’s approach, she publicly objected to the “Sky” voice for sounding too close to her, and later called for legislation after another fake AI video spread online using her likeness. What makes her pushback hit harder than the average celebrity complaint is that it keeps circling the same point: consent is not optional just because the software looks sleek. | © The Weinstein Company

2. Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett never needed to turn this into a sermon to get her point across. She has said she is deeply concerned about AI, warned it could be destructive for the entertainment business, and signed onto the newer campaign accusing tech companies of treating creative work like a free buffet. That combination feels very Cate: elegant on the surface, absolutely unamused underneath, and fully aware that once the industry normalizes replacement, it never stops at the background players. | © New Line Cinema

3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been one of the clearest actors on this subject because he talks about AI like a labor issue instead of a sci-fi panic attack. He argued that if a system is trained on someone’s work, that person should be paid, which he bluntly compared to residuals, and he kept pressing the same point in later appearances. The tone is less apocalypse preacher and more guy doing the math out loud while everyone else pretends the spreadsheet is not on fire. | © Warner Bros.

4. Sean Astin

Union presidents do not get the luxury of being fuzzy, and Sean Astin has not tried to be. As he stepped into the top SAG-AFTRA job, AI was already sitting near the center of the next contract fight, and he made clear the union was not about to surrender the protections won in 2023. There is something fitting about Samwise ending up here: still loyal, still stubborn, still telling Hollywood that real people belong in the story more than synthetic stand-ins do. | © New Line Cinema

5. Olivia Munn

Olivia Munn has not made AI her entire public personality, which is honestly part of why her stance lands cleanly. Instead of going for a flashy headline, she backed the anti-AI campaign arguing that unlicensed training is theft and that creators deserve licensing, permission, and actual respect. That kind of move matters because not every rejection comes with a dramatic quote attached to it; sometimes the point is simply refusing to let Silicon Valley call exploitation innovation and hoping nobody notices the swap. | © 20th Century Fox

6. Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves has been wary of this stuff for longer than most stars were even talking about it out loud. He revealed that his contracts include protections against having his performance digitally altered without his approval, and he has called deepfakes and AI manipulation “scary” because they strip away an actor’s agency. That stance fits him almost too perfectly: the face of The Matrix warning people that synthetic reality stops being fun once somebody else is piloting your image. | © Thunder Road Pictures

7. Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson came at the AI argument from the creator-rights side of the business, which makes perfect sense for someone whose voice is not exactly interchangeable. By joining the anti-AI licensing campaign in 2026, she lined up with performers arguing that songs, recordings, and performances are not free raw material for giant companies to scrape and monetize. There is no need to overcomplicate her position: if the machine wants to learn from human artistry, the humans should not be the only ones left unpaid at the table. | © Paramount Pictures

8. Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller’s AI stance has the same energy as a good deadpan joke: calm delivery, sharp edge, no patience for nonsense. He was among the Hollywood names who signed the 2025 letter urging the White House not to let AI companies weaken copyright protections for film, television, music, writing, and voices. In other words, he did not buy the sales pitch that America needs “innovation” so badly it should hand the keys to every creative archive over for free and smile about it. | © Red Hour Productions

9. Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo rarely sits out a public fight, so it was no surprise to see his name on the 2025 push to keep copyright law from being hollowed out for AI training. The letter warned that creative industries should not be sacrificed so tech companies can feed copyrighted work into models without permission. That has always been the real split in this debate: one side calls it progress, the other notices somebody’s labor is being vacuumed up first. Ruffalo knew exactly which side he was on. | © Marvel Studios

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10. Cynthia Erivo

Cynthia Erivo entered the AI debate in the same way she tends to enter a role: with precision and no interest in half-measures. Reporting around the 2025 White House letter specifically noted that she signed on in support of copyright protections as AI companies pushed for looser rules around training data. It is a polished position, but not a soft one. Beneath the diplomacy sits a very simple refusal to treat human expression like anonymous fuel that can be stripped for parts and sold back with a futuristic logo. | © Universal Pictures

11. Ayo Edebiri

Ayo Edebiri’s pushback was quieter than some of the headline-grabbing speeches, but the position itself was clear. She was among the names attached to the 2025 letter warning that OpenAI and Google should not get weaker copyright rules just because they want cheaper access to everybody else’s work. That kind of intervention feels right for her: dry, smart, and uninterested in pretending the central issue is complicated. A lot of AI hype is basically rebranded entitlement, and this was Hollywood saying it out loud. | © FX Productions

12. Aubrey Plaza

Aubrey Plaza backing an anti-AI letter feels almost too on-brand, as if the universe wrote the casting itself. She signed onto the 2025 Hollywood effort warning the government not to loosen copyright rules for AI training, placing her with the crowd that saw exactly where the “just let the model learn” argument was heading. Plaza’s screen persona has always depended on timing, awkwardness, and that unmistakably human side-eye, which is probably why the idea of flattening performance into data sludge feels especially wrong in her orbit. | © Netflix

13. Kevin Bacon

Kevin Bacon did not need a podium moment to make his position plain. He signed the 2024 statement declaring that the unlicensed use of creative works for generative AI training is a major and unjust threat to the people who made those works, which is about as direct as public language gets without someone flipping a table. There is a nice simplicity to that move: no jargon, no dance around the issue, just a refusal to let years of craft become unpaid machine feed because a tech company found a cleaner euphemism. | © Paramount Pictures

14. Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage, naturally, did not approach AI in lowercase. He warned fellow actors that studios could use the technology to change faces, voices, body language, even line deliveries, and later kept hammering the same broader point that robots cannot reflect the human condition. That is the most Nicolas Cage way possible to reject synthetic performance, but it is also dead serious. Beneath the operatic phrasing sits a sharp defense of acting as something lived, felt, and risked by a person, not assembled after the fact by software. | © Walt Disney Pictures

15. Joaquin Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix has not turned the AI debate into a one-man press tour, but his position still showed up in a very public way. Recent reporting linked him to the Stealing Isn’t Innovation campaign, a push from artists and creators arguing that tech companies should not be training AI on copyrighted work without permission. Fittingly, the star of Her ended up on the side insisting that human work is not just raw material for the next machine demo. | © Warner Bros.