The seven-time Grammy winner is trading stadiums for soundstages. Billie Eilish is in advanced talks to make her feature film acting debut in a new adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s seminal 1963 novel, The Bell Jar. The 24-year-old singer-songwriter, already a two-time Oscar winner for her songwriting, would take on the lead role of Esther Greenwood under the direction of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sarah Polley.
The Billie Eilish acting debut comes packaged with heavyweight industry backing. Focus Features is closing a deal to distribute the project, which counts Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and StudioCanal among its producers. Joy Gorman Wettels, known for 13 Reasons Why, originated the project through her company Joy Coalition and personally attached both Eilish and Polley to the adaptation.
For fans following Billie Eilish’s The Bell Jar news, the casting makes intuitive sense. Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel follows a young woman’s descent into depression while grappling with societal expectations in 1950s America, themes Eilish has explored throughout her catalog. The book, published under a pseudonym just weeks before Plath’s suicide, has since been translated into more than forty languages and become a feminist literary touchstone.
This isn’t Eilish’s first time in front of a camera. She earned a People’s Choice Award and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her scene-stealing role in the 2023 Prime Video series Swarm. She’s also co-directing a 3D concert documentary with James Cameron, set for release this spring.
Sarah Polley brings considerable literary adaptation credentials to Billie Eilish The Bell Jar project. The director won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for 2022’s Women Talking and has built a career exploring how women survive within oppressive systems. Her approach to Plath’s only novel promises the sensitivity this material demands.
The film has been decades in the making. Previous attempts to adapt The Bell Jar involved Julia Stiles in 2007 and Kirsten Dunst with Dakota Fanning in 2017, but neither came to fruition. A 2019 Showtime series development was also abandoned. With Polley writing the script and Eilish attached, this version finally has momentum.
While no production timeline has been announced, industry sources suggest cameras could roll later this year. No plans currently exist for Eilish to contribute music to the project, though the possibility remains open. For the 24-year-old who became the youngest two-time Oscar winner in history, and the only Oscar winner born in the 21st century, the Billie Eilish acting debut represents another boundary dissolved
