I’m in San Francisco,” Ike Barinholtz says via Zoom from his hotel room, then spins his laptop around to prove it. “See? There’s Alcatraz.” It’s now official, though paparazzi photos have all but confirmed it: Barinholtz is in town filming Artificial , Luca Guadagnino’s fact-based account of the behind-the-scenes turmoil that saw OpenAI CEO Sam Altman fired and quickly rehired in 2023. Andrew Garfield plays Altman in the film. And Barinholtz? He’s Elon Musk. No big deal — just the richest, most recognizable, most controversial dude on the planet.

That casting coup caps a watershed year for the 48-year-old Chicago native, still buzzing from having pulled off one of the funniest and most talked about roles of his career: Sal Saperstein on Apple TV+’s uproarious Hollywood send-up The S

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