Billie Eilish is set to return to acting with a major role in a film adaptation of The Bell Jar, the iconic novel by Sylvia Plath. The Grammy-winning singer is in advanced talks to star in the project, which will be written and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Sarah Polley and distributed in the U.S. by Focus Features.
Billie Eilish’s acting move
The film would mark Billie Eilish’s feature film acting debut, expanding her career beyond music. Although she previously appeared in the 2023 series Swarm, this would be her first major role on the big screen.
She has spoken about having an early interest in acting, noting that both of her parents and her brother Finneas have acting backgrounds. She even joked during a Saturday Night Live monologue that acting was once a childhood dream before music took over her career.
About The Bell Jar adaptation
The movie will adapt Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical story about a young writer, Esther Greenwood, who struggles with mental illness and societal expectations in 1950s America.
The book is widely considered a literary classic and has been difficult to adapt for the screen. A previous film version was released in 1979, and several later attempts—some involving stars like Julia Stiles and Dakota Fanning—never materialized.
Sarah Polley, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay of Women Talking, will both write and direct the film. Production partners reportedly include Plan B Entertainment and StudioCanal, with Focus Features handling distribution in the United States.