Billie Eilish to Star in Oscar Winner’s Sylvia Plath Movie

Billie Eilish is in talks to make her movie debut in a big way, and is in talks to star in an adaptation of legendary author Sylvia Plath’s work.

What do we know about Billie Eilish’s Sylvia Plath movie?

As first reported by Jeff Sneider in his newsletter The InSneider, Eilish is set to star in an adaptation of Plath’s seminal novel The Bell Jar. The movie adaptation will be directed by Sarah Polley, who won an Oscar in 2023 for Best Adapted Screenplay for the drama film Women Talking, which was adapted by a novel by Miriam Toews.

In a separate report from Deadline on the news, Focus Features is looking to close a deal as distributor of the project. Neither report notes what type of role Eilish will have in the film, but she will be on camera, and is not just associated with the movie in a musical capacity. While it will be her first feature film role, Eilish has briefly done some acting work, appearing in an episode of Amazon’s series Swarm in 2023.

Originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas,” The Bell Jar is the only novel ever written by Plath. The book is supposedly semi-autobiographical and chronicles the story of a young woman’s descent into mental illness and the various societal pressures she feels.

The book is often seen as a parallel to Plath’s own life, as the author and poet dealt with depression that ultimately led to her suicide just a month after the book was published in the UK. The book wasn’t published in the U.S. until 1971, but became a best-seller immediately, and is often regarded as one of the best novels of the modern age.

Eilish’s burst onto the music scene in 2015, and has been a superstar since. The star is won two Academy Awards, 10 Grammys, two Golden Globes, and countless other awards throughout her career. Most recently, Eilish’s song “Wildflower” took home Song of the Year at the 2026 Grammys, and her song “What Was I Made For?” for the Barbie movie, as well as her song “No Time to Die” for 2022’s James Bond movie No Time to Die, won Oscars for Best Original Song.

Source: Comingsoon.net