Brendan Bradley

Brendan Bradley is an American actor and digital-media advocate who became a leading voice inside SAG-AFTRA on the threat posed by synthetic performers to working actors. He serves on the union's AI task force and has spoken extensively on the economics of digital doubles and AI-generated likenesses.

Bradley is the architect of the so-called Tilly Tax, a proposal that SAG-AFTRA is now formally advancing in its 2026 AMPTP contract negotiations. The mechanism would impose a royalty on AI-generated performers, making a synthetic actor cost the same or more than a real one, and directing that revenue into union healthcare and pension funds.

The proposal reflects a broader tension in Hollywood: studios want the flexibility to generate performers digitally at scale, while unions argue this threatens both livelihoods and the long-run funding base of benefit schemes. Bradley's leverage depends on whether the Tilly Tax survives bargaining intact, or is diluted into a voluntary opt-in that studios can sidestep.