Reanimated AI Greta Garbo stars again … in a ball-bearing advert

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Relatives of Hollywood legend say her doppelganger could now be used for more glamorous roles

She shimmered in Hollywood’s silent movie era and lit up the first talkies – now Greta Garbo may be about to star in cinema’s new AI age.

More than a century after her screen debut and decades after her ashes were laid to rest in a Swedish woodland cemetery, the Hollywood superstar’s descendants are ready to consider an AI version of her taking a 21st-century film role.

Her likeness has already been reanimated for an advert for a Swedish industrial company, using AI generation technology. The practice some critics call “ghostploitation” has also been used in the case of the actor Val Kilmer, who died last year.

Asked if the AI Garbo could be cast in other roles, Craig Reisfield, one of three relatives who manage her legacy, told the Guardian: “I won’t say no, especially having seen what I’ve seen. It’s pretty incredible and lifelike. So what’s to say that you can’t bring Greta Garbo back in some kind of fashion in a film role?”

Reisfield said he was “flabbergasted” when he saw the AI version of his great-aunt created for publicity for the ball-bearings giant SKF. The connection comes because Garbo’s second-ever screen role was in a 1921 promotional film involving the Gothenburg-based company.

While Garbo was the