There’s a very real chance that the sibling singer/songwriters Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell — the guests on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast, having previously been guests on an episode in 2021 — will make history in 2024.
Over the 95 years of the Academy Awards, only three people have won two Oscars by the age of 30, the youngest being Luise Rainer, at 28, back in 1938. But Eilish and O’Connell, who won the best original song Oscar in 2022 for the Bond song “No Time to Die” from No Time to Die, are currently the frontrunners to win it again for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, which Greta Gerwig has called the “heart song” of her critically acclaimed summer blockbuster. If that happens, it will make them, at just 22 and 26, respectively, the new record-holders, by far.
“What Was I Made For?,” which articulates the feelings of the title character (played by Margot Robbie) as she decides whether or not she wants to leave Barbieland for the real world, spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Music Chart and reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. It brought Eilish and O’Connell still-pending Grammy nominations for record of the year, song of the year and best song written for visual media, and Eilish additional noms for best solo performance and best music video. It brought the duo a best original song Golden Globe Award on Sunday night, and still-pending nominations for Critics Choice and Society of Composers and Lyricists awards. And it has been Oscar-shortlisted, too.
Another Oscar nom or win would add to a résumé that’s already incomparable. Eilish and O’Connell’s songs have been streamed billions of times. She was the first artist born in this millennium to have a song hit No. 1 on the Hot 100. He, at just 22, became the youngest ever winner of the producer of the year Grammy. She became only the second person, first female and youngest person ever, at 18, to win all four top Grammys — best new artist, record of the year, song of the year and album of the year — and did so all in a single year. He’s been nominated for a total of 17 Grammys, winning eight. She’s been nominated for 25, winning seven. And the list goes on.
You can hear the full conversation at the top of this post or read excerpts below.
You made a lot of your earlier music in your childhood home. Now that you have homes of your own, is there a new space where you like to collaborate and make your music?
BILLIE EILISH We work in my brother’s house, in his basement that he’s turned into a very cute little studio. That’s where we made all of our last album, Happier Than Ever. And then this new album that we’re almost done with.
FINNEAS O’CONNELL And the Barbie song. Yeah, it’s got some daylight. It’s totally a basement, but there are windows, which is necessary.
EILISH Yeah, I personally hate studios so much.
O’CONNELL We also love writing songs on a guitar or piano in our living rooms. And we’ve written a fair amount of hotel rooms. To us, it’s like, wherever you’re living. We almost never go to an actual recording studio complex. And part of that is we don’t know how to use anything. There’s very little good to come of me sitting in front of like an SSL board — I don’t know how to use it.
How do you balance making something that’s important to you and also commercial?
EILISH I’ve found that anytime I’m like, “What are people going to want?,” I screw myself. People don’t like you for the fake things you do. They like you for the real things you do. Nobody likes somebody for being a poser.
When you experience writer’s block, what do you do?
EILISH It’s tough. I feel like it’s good to not put too much pressure on yourself with that. I was just talking to Greta Gerwig about how creativity takes boredom and productivity takes creativity. If you’re just doing a bunch of stuff and you never have a second, and then it’s like, “OK, here’s my two hours to create,” it’s like, “Well, I don’t have anything yet. I haven’t given myself time to know what I even want to even say. I’m completely somewhere else. I’m not here right now.” I feel like the times when I’ve been the most creative are when I just put down my phone and stop doing stuff and just am like, “Let me just exist and feel and see stuff, look around and experience.” But it’s definitely a very demoralizing feeling, writer’s block. In January, which is when we wrote “What Was I Made For?” for the Barbie movie, we’d been in a chunk of time of “writer’s block.” We had been working a lot and trying to come up with stuff, and just not making anything good. And it felt bad. I was genuinely worried that it was over. And I was like, “I don’t know if I have this in me anymore.” And then we saw this Barbie movie and oh, my God, it was amazing. And the next day, we had a really uncreative day and we were really bummed out and I was going to leave. And then we were like, “You know what? Let’s just try to do this.” And that’s when we made “What Was I Made For?”
What do you guys like most and least about what you do?
EILISH I do not like writing songs. Just going to say it. I find it incredibly upsetting and frustrating and irritating. I love having written a song. I like coming up with something good. When we’re sitting and we come up with a line and we’re both like, “Oh, love that,” that feels really good. But the act of sitting there and playing different chords and singing different melodies, I find really frustrating, and it makes me feel like I’m not talented. When it’s finished, I love it and I think I’m a G. But I love performing so much. It’s truly one of my favorite things to do in the world. And I love to sing. And I also just love hanging out with my brother. This dude rocks, and we have so much fun together. And it’s just gotten better and better over the years.
O’CONNELL She’s getting better and better at producing. And she’s getting better at engineering too. I’ve had wonderful peak life experiences performing, but I really love writing. So it’s a little inverse. But they are both wonderful. And there’s nothing like performing a thing that you’ve made privately in your room and having a kind of communal experience with a song. That’s an incredibly validating experience.
You guys have said that you sometimes write songs by adopting different characters. Can you talk more about that?
O’CONNELL It’s a form of fighting writer’s block from the jump. If you have something you’re burning to say, go ahead and say it — like, if you’ve gone through a breakup or something that’s making you feel really emotional, you’re going to want to get that out. By that same token, I don’t want to live a torrid, crazy, turbulent life for the sake of art — I want to be happy and enjoy my life, so I’m not blowing up my relationships and getting in fights with my friends and stuff. To me, the only thing that’s really important is being an empathetic person. If I’m watching a friend go through a breakup or I’ve read a book about a crazy heartbreaking experience, my empathy is enough for me to put myself in their shoes and write a song from that perspective.
EILISH I find writing from a character perspective, or a different story that isn’t my own, very satisfying. I’ve always found that it’s much harder for me to write from my own experience, especially in the moment; I can write in hindsight, but even then it’s hard to be vulnerable. Also, there’s imposter syndrome of, “Who cares? Who wants to hear this? What do I even have to say?” Whereas if you have a friend or somebody who’s going through something challenging, you’re like, “That’s so much more important. I want to write about that.” I love thinking about their point of view.
How did your involvement with Barbie come about?
O’CONNELL It started with Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Mattel. One of our team members was sitting with Ynon and texted me and was like, “Are you guys doing a song for the Barbie movie?” I was like, “Not to my knowledge.” And they’re like, “Do you want to?” And I basically got put in touch with Mark Ronson. I was pretty aware of everything that was public knowledge about Barbie at that point — I’d seen those set photos of Margot and Ryan on the beach and stuff — and Billie and I love Greta. Then there was an opportunity to see it — Greta flew out and showed it to us — and then it was just about, “Can we write a song that lives up to this movie?” When we saw it, Dua’s song [“Dance the Night”] was already in there, so it wasn’t like, “Oh, write a big pop anthem,” which probably wasn’t what we would’ve done anyway. It was like, “We have to come at this from a totally different angle.”
You’ve now written several songs for movies. How is writing a song for a movie different than writing a song for an album?
EILISH Finneas and I can write from a prompt — that’s something we really thrive at. I love not having to worry about myself and worry about my own life and experiences and feelings. It’s relieving. The actual process of writing is the same, it’s just kind of approaching it differently. “What Was I Made For?” is a song that we were writing, in the moment, about Barbie and her experience in that movie, not about me and not about Finneas and not about anything about our lives at all. I was thinking about this character that was so powerful and inspiring and beautiful. And what’s so insane — and it’s happened multiple times, which I find very eerie — is a couple days later we finished it, I was listening to it — I was playing it for some friends — and I was like “Damn, this is about me.” I didn’t mean to do that. We did not mean to do that at all. But it’s so clear that your subconscious is there and when something moves you, it fucking moves you, and I think that’s really cool. I don’t think we would’ve written that song, or even a song close to that song, if we’d tried to write about my experience. I would’ve been too in my head.
O’CONNELL We were joking about this the other day: It feels like licensed fan-fiction. When we talk about “Bellyache” or “Fingers Crossed,” one of the first songs Billie wrote, about a character on the TV show The Walking Dead, like, we’ve been writing fan fiction forever. Eventually, filmmakers asked us to do it professionally.
EILISH A big songwriting challenge that we used to do was, “Let’s pretend to write a song for a Bond movie.” We used to do that all the time. That was ridiculous — like, “Why would that ever happen?” But it was just a fun challenge to do. And then we made a song for a Bond movie.
What’s the film song by someone else that’s most impressed you?
EILISH We both love “Skyfall.” Because of our age, Skyfall was the first Bond movie I’d even heard of. It’s so cool. Also, doesn’t Sarah McLachlan have one in Toy Story 2? “When She Loved Me,” right? That was beautiful.
O’CONNELL The Ben Folds stuff in Over the Hedge. Those songs rock.
EILISH Also, Spirit — fucking Bryan Adams, “Here I Am.”
O’CONNELL “Shallow” [from A Star Is Born].
EILISH We are fans and love movies and love music in movies. Music in movies does not get enough recognition. People don’t talk about how music in a movie or a show literally makes or breaks whatever you’re watching.
Who’s your dream collaborator on a song?
EILISH Frank Sinatra. If it was possible, that’s my dream.
If you weren’t doing music, what would you be doing?
EILISH I think dance. I was dancing, and then I had an injury, and then it was like, “You’re not going to dance for a really long time,” and then we made music, and then things changed.
O’CONNELL I’m not a good chef, but I love to cook. I’d love to go to culinary school.
You two have already accomplished so much in your careers. What’s something that’s still on your to-do list?
O’CONNELL I really do want to write a musical.
EILISH I would love to direct a movie someday.
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