Tinsel Magazine
March 26th, 2026
Val Kilmer’s AI resurrection in ‘As Deep as the Grave’ is Hollywood’s first posthumous performance— and the ethical questions are just starting…
Five years prior to his death in 2025, Val Kilmer was cast as Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, in “As Deep as the Grave.” But Kilmer, who was battling throat cancer, was too sick to ever make it to set.
Now, according to Variety, the production is using AI to reconstruct his performance posthumously, making this Hollywood’s first fully AI-generated lead performance of a deceased actor in a theatrical feature. The technology isn’t new—Kilmer himself authorized AI recreation of his voice in Top Gun: Maverick while he was alive, and Netflix has poured $600 million into Ben Affleck’s AI production startup specifically to automate visual effects and performance capture.
What’s new is the ethical framework collapsing in real time. A living actor consenting to AI assistance for a role he can physically perform is one thing. A dead actor being digitally resurrected for a role he never shot is another.
