Anthony Bourdain’s “Ghoulish” Deepfaked Voice in ‘Roadrunner’ Receives Backlash: “Wildly Unethical”

Even though the documentary stands at a whopping 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain has received major criticism for one controversial aspect of the film. Morgan Neville‘s new doc follows the life of Anthony Bourdain, the late host of hit shows like No Reservations  and Parts Unknown who died by suicide in 2018. While creating the movie, Neville used AI technology to recreate Bourdain’s voice and bring words he said — though never aloud — to life. And fans are not happy.

Speaking to GQ magazine, Neville explained the computer process behind the AI voice — and, more importantly, that he gained approval from Bourdain’s widow and other close companions (more on that in a moment).

“We fed more than ten hours of Tony’s voice into an AI model,” Neville said. “The bigger the quantity, the better the result. We worked with four companies before settling on the best. We also had to figure out the best tone of Tony’s voice: His speaking voice versus his ‘narrator’ voice, which itself changed dramatically of over the years. The narrator voice got very performative and sing-songy in the No Reservation years. I checked, you know, with his widow and his literary executor, just to make sure people were cool with that. And they were like, Tony would have been cool with that. I wasn’t putting words into his mouth. I was just trying to make them come alive.”

Fans of Bourdain were quick to respond to the interview. Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel tweeted the interview excerpt and commented, “Thanks I hate it.”

“When I wrote my review I was not aware that the filmmakers had used an A.I. to deepfake Bourdain’s voice for the narration,” critic Sean Burns also shared. “I feel like this tells you all you need to know about the ethics of the people behind this project.”

Bourdain’s widower, Ottavia Bourdain, also chimed in on the matter: “I certainly was NOT the one who said Tony would have been cool with that.”

Worth nothing, the TV personality has two ex-wives: Nancy Putkoski, with whom he was married from 1985 to 2005, and Ottavia Busia (Bourdain), who he married after in 2006 and divorced in 2016. It’s possible Neville could’ve chatted with Putkoski — but Bourdain was more recently wed to Busia.

After the backlash unfurled around the AI voice, Neville once again opened up with a statement to Variety. Reiterating that he had gotten the green-light from those close with Bourdain, Neville persisted in saying the technique was logical.

“There were a few sentences that Tony wrote that he never spoke aloud,” Neville said. “With the blessing of his estate and literary agent we used AI technology. It was a modern storytelling technique that I used in a few places where I thought it was important to make Tony’s words come alive.”

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain has yet to hit streaming, though it’s expected to air on HBO Max at a later date. The doc is currently available to watch in theaters.