'Klara and the Sun' star Jenna Ortega: 'Artificial intelligence isn't creative'

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Set us as preferred The future of friendship is here — and things are looking a bit artificial.Based on the critically acclaimed 2021 novel by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, “Klara and the Sun” — out in theaters Friday — stars Jenna Ortega as the titular Klara, an optimistic, solar-powered Artificial Friend who yearns to be someone’s companion.She finds that fellowship in Josie (Mia Tharia), a chronically ill teenager.

The two become inseparable, despite great disapproval from Josie’s mother Chrissie (Amy Adams).But audiences should not expect to see the 24-year-old — best known for her macabre role in Netflix’s “Wednesday” — with a deadpan expression or in a morose mood.“People are not used to seeing me be so expressive and especially over the years I’ve become a little bit more introverted,” she said.“It was very futuristic and just visually different than anything that I’d ever done before.

And it’s so rare that you get the opportunity to be so expressive and to be so big on screen.”Directed by Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok,” “Jojo Rabbit”), the film is set in a dystopian society where the use of artificial intelligence is meant to address loneliness — a topic that feels all too pertinent.One 2025 study by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that roughly a quarter of individuals under 30 say they use AI for companionship.

A Pew Research Center survey of U.S.teens that same year found that 16% use chatbots for casual conversations while 12% rely on it for emotional support or advice.Despite the subject matter, Waititi and Ortega said the film is not a commentary on artificial intelligence.“It was like three years ago when we shot this,” Waititi said.

“That whole [AI] thing has taken off since then.”“In the process of puttin...