Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby deepfake (Jul 2025)

In late July 2025, during the press tour for Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps, an AI-manipulated video went viral on X purporting to show Pedro Pascal repeatedly kissing his co-star Vanessa Kirby, as well as a journalist interviewing him. None of the depicted moments happened. The clips took real press-tour footage of the two actors — who play Reed Richards and Sue Storm in the film — and altered it to imply inappropriate behavior by Pascal.

What happened

The fabricated montage circulated widely in the last week of July 2025, showing Pascal appearing to kiss a visibly pregnant Kirby and a woman interviewing him. Fact-checkers at LatestLY confirmed the viral videos were AI-generated, and coverage in The Tab and LADbible noted a telltale artifact: Pascal's face morphs awkwardly and loses detail at the moment of each supposed kiss, a common failure mode in AI-manipulated video.

The clips landed on fertile ground. Fans following the film's promotion had already noted how physically close Pascal and Kirby were on red carpets, often holding hands. Pascal had explained that the pair stayed close to support each other through overwhelming press events, saying they were "always grabbing onto one another to remind each other that we're not alone in any of it," and he has spoken openly about experiencing anxiety. Kirby described the closeness as mutual reassurance, calling it "a lovely gesture." The deepfake twisted that documented, platonic dynamic into something sinister, and many fans described the wave of posts amplifying it as a coordinated smear campaign against Pascal, with some pointing to what looked like botted account activity.

Neither actor issued a formal statement about the video; their earlier comments about the friendship served as the effective rebuttal, and neither Marvel nor the studio publicly addressed the clips.

Why this incident matters

This case shows how celebrity deepfakes are used not just for parody or fraud but for reputational attack. By editing real footage from a real press tour, the fabrication borrowed authenticity from its context, making a false narrative about a public figure's conduct spread faster than the correction. For actors in the middle of a promotional cycle, a single manipulated clip can hijack coverage of a major release.

Where detection fits

Clips like this can be screened before they are reported on or shared. A video deepfake detector can flag the frame-level inconsistencies that human viewers only sometimes notice, such as the face distortion visible in this montage — an artifact typical of face swap manipulation applied to real interview footage.