Billie Eilish is reportedly set to make her big screen debut in Sarah Polley's adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
The two-time Academy Award winner for Best Original Song (2022 for No Time To Die and 2024 for Barbie) is expected to star as Esther Greenwood, a young woman who suffers a mental breakdown during a magazine internship, attempts suicide, and eventually recovers after treatment in a private institution.
Plath's only book, The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical account of the author’s experience with mental illness that also explores the societal expectations of women in the 1950s. (Plath committed suicide just one month after the novel’s first publication in the UK.)
Polley, who won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking in 2023, will direct and write the screenplay for the film, which is being picked up by Focus Features. Joy Gorman Wettels (13 Reasons Why), Plan B Entertainment, and StudioCanal will produce.
The Bell Jar will mark Eilish's first foray into film, however, she previously made her acting debut in an episode of Amazon Prime's 2023 series Swarm, which was created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover.