Billie Eilish Set to Make Film Acting Debut in ‘The Bell Jar’ Adaptation

Billie Eilish is preparing to take on a new role, this time on the big screen. The Grammy-winning singer is reportedly set to make her feature film acting debut in a new adaptation of a well-known literary classic.

Multiple outlets reported that Eilish is set to make her movie acting debut in director Sarah Polley's adaptation of author Sylvia Plath's classic 1963 novel The Bell Jar. Although this movie would function as Eilish's movie debut, the singer already has two Academy Awards for her work co-writing original songs for 2023's Barbie and 2021's James Bond entry No Time to Die with her brother and producer Finneas.

Polley will adapt Plath's novel herself and direct the in-the-works film for Focus Features, as multiple outlets reported. The director last released 2022's Women Talking, for which she won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (the movie was also nominated for Best Picture).

The Bell Jar is the only novel Plath, who died by suicide at 30 in 1963, published during her lifetime. "One of the most profound character portraits of mental illness, The Bell Jar tells the story of a brilliant young artist who is losing her mind," reads an official description of the novel. "Grappling with themes of feminism, societal pressures, and ambition, this is a deep dive into a mind capable of so much being gradually reduced to so little."

According to Deadline, Eilish will portray the movie's lead character Esther Greenwood, who struggles with her mental health after she takes on a position at a magazine in New York City. The outlet also reported that Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst, Dakota Fanning and Frankie Shaw have at times been involved with efforts to produce a movie or television adaptation of the novel over the last 20 years that never panned out.

Eilish made her television acting debut in an episode of the 2023 Prime Video series Swarm.

Fans of the singer who want to see her on screen again will not have to wait long. Her 3D concert documentary collaboration with James Cameron, Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft, will release in theaters on May 8 and follow her making of 2024 LP Hit Me Hard and Soft, for which she won Song of the Year ("WILDFLOWER") at the 2026 Grammy Awards in February.

Polley, meanwhile, appeared as an actor recently when she played a fictional version of herself in one episode of Seth Rogen's Apple TV comedy series The Studio. She previously claimed at the 2023 Oscars that she was developing a separate movie project "based on my experiences going through awards season" that year.