Man Vs. Baby, which stars Mr Bean's Rowan Atkinson, has landed on Netflix following the success of Man vs. Bee back in 2022. The four-episode Christmas special sees the return of Atkinson's Trevor Bingley as he houses-sites for millionaires during the holiday season.

However, things take a turn when Trevor is forced to take care of a lost baby, leading to hilarious results. While Atkinson's previous co-star was an animal, this time it is a six-month-old baby, and fans have been wondering if AI was used to enhance the performance.

Given that the series relies on a real child actor for many of the major acting sequences, it will come as no surprise that director David Kerr has confirmed fans' suspicions about the use of AI. Speaking to LBB, he explained how they used various techniques during production, including casting identical twin babies, CGI and 'machine learning' in order to develop the babies' expressions.

Machine learning (ML) is a subset of artificial intelligence, meaning that the show does use AI, though they also did cast real human babies in the role. Kerr explained why using several techniques to smooth production was vital, as the babies could only be on set for a maximum of two hours a day and a "six-month-old isn't going to take direction".

He recalled discussing using AI tools with VFX supervisor, Rob Duncan of Framestore, explaining: "What we attempted to do is right at the cutting edge of what's possible. We wanted to have a full CGI baby that looked totally indistinguishable from the hero baby, but would have exactly the action or expression any specific scene demanded.

"So we started with a performance capture session. Essentially pointing five cameras at each of our hero babies for a couple of hours in the hope of capturing a full gamut of expressions, waking, sleeping..."

Atkinson also outlined the difficulties around scheduling laws when it comes to baby actors, explaining they were quite "tricky", which is where the CGI came in handy. He said: "The scheduling is tricky with babies.

"So we have identical twins, the hero babies, and then we had twin crawling babies because the hero babies couldn't crawl. So that's where the CGI comes in, when you implant the face of the hero baby into the crawling baby."

The Netflix synopsis for Man Vs. Baby reads: "As Christmas approaches, a blundering-all-the-way dad juggles housesitting a posh London penthouse with an unexpected pickle: caring for a lost baby."

Other cast members alongside Atkinson include Susannah Fielding, Steve Edge, Sunil Patel, Alanah Bloor, Claudia Blakley, Ashley Jensen and Sunetra Sarker. In a previous exclusive interview with Reach Screen Time, Atkinson admitted that he "didn't enjoy" the filming process.

He said: "I can't think of anything that I enjoyed filming. But that's just me when I'm filming, so I apologise for that." The Blackadder star also offered some criticism of the show, saying: "I think the show is very good, but I can also see holes in it. I keep thinking, hmm."

Man Vs. Baby is available to stream now on Netflix.