Mercedes Kilmer Defends Val Kilmer's AI Performance as Actor IP Precedent

Mercedes Kilmer appeared on the Today Show on April 29, 2026, to respond directly to industry criticism of her father's posthumous AI performance in As Deep as the Grave. Her core argument: actors who engage with the technology now, on their own terms, are in a stronger legal and commercial position than those who wait for courts or guild negotiations to set the terms for them.

Val Kilmer died on April 1, 2025, from pneumonia. He had been cast in the film five years before his death and was too ill to shoot a single scene. AI was used to generate his appearance and performance in full.

From Workaround to Strategy

Mercedes Kilmer told Today that her father's relationship with the project evolved. "It started off as a way to overcome the limitations of his illness, but then it evolved into something that he really was like, 'Oh, wait. I have a chance to actually set a precedent'"she said.

That precedent is specific: consent given by a living actor before death, with a family estate formally authorizing the AI process afterward. It is a fact pattern that no major production had previously established in a theatrically distributed film, and the announcement of As Deep as the Grave at the European Film Market in Berlin in March 2026 was the first time a production company publicly confirmed using generative AI to recreate a deceased performer's likeness for a theatrical feature.

The Two-Camp Divide

Mercedes Kilmer acknowledged that the industry has not received the news uniformly. "It's kind of fallen into two camps. People that maybe have a more precarious position in the industry and are worried and see AI as a threat — which is absolutely valid — and younger people, younger actors and musicians", she said.

She said the second group is responding differently. "I've gotten a lot of like really good responses from people — older people, people maybe more established in the industry — that see it as a way to protect that actors' ownership of their IP."

Proactive Licensing as IP Protection

The procedural argument Mercedes Kilmer made is the clearest public articulation yet of why timing matters in AI rights. "It's much easier to structure the rights if you proactively license something", she said. The alternative is waiting until a production wants to use a likeness, at which point the actor or estate negotiates from a weaker position.

The consent and compensation model that SAG-AFTRA codified in its 2026 studios deal reflects the same logic at the industry level: consent is established before work begins, not disputed afterward. Whether As Deep as the Grave formally operated under that guild framework is not confirmed in the public record, but the Kilmer estate's approach is consistent with what the agreement describes.

California's AB 2602 and AB 1836 provide the statutory floor for this kind of licensing. Both laws require explicit written consent before a digital replica of a living or deceased performer can be used in a production. The Kilmer estate's proactive consent is the behavior those statutes were written to incentivize.

Val Kilmer's History With AI Tools

This was not Kilmer's first engagement with AI as a production tool. For Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, he partnered with UK company Sonantic to generate an AI powered speaking voice, compensating for the throat cancer that had taken his natural voice. His daughter described a consistent orientation across his career: "He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling."

Navajo Language Recovery

Mercedes Kilmer also pointed to a dimension of the film's AI work beyond the performance itself. The production used the technology to assist in Navajo language recovery for the film, which she described as "a really ethical, interesting use of the technology." No details were provided on the specific methodology.

The film, directed by Coerte Voorhees, is currently in distribution discussions. No release date has been announced. "We have to contend with this technology one way or the other", Mercedes Kilmer said. Her argument, and the Kilmer estate's position, is that doing so proactively offers more protection than the alternative.

Filmmakers exploring what AI integrated production looks like in practice can access the current generation of video and image tools at AI FILMS Studio.

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Sources

Today.com | Variety | Consequence.net | The Wrap | Screen Rant