Billie Eilish to Make Feature Acting Debut in ‘The Bell Jar’ Adaptation for Director Sarah Polley and Focus Features

Billie Eilish already has two Oscars, each for Best Original Song, but this one feels like a project that one day could have her in a Best Actress conversation.

Eilish is attached to make her feature acting debut in an adaptation of “The Bell Jar,” the Sylvia Plath semi-autobiographical novel from 1963, which will be directed by another Oscar winner, Sarah Polley, IndieWire has learned. Focus Features is in talks to acquire the package.

Polley is writing and directing, and this is her first film since 2023, when she won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Women Talking.” Joy Gorman Wettels (“Little House on the Prairie,” “13 Reasons Why”), who originated the project through her company Joy Coalition, is producing the film along with Plan B Entertainment and StudioCanal.

“The Bell Jar” was written by the American poet and is considered semi-autobiographical as Plath died of suicide a month after the book was published after suffering from clinical depression. The book follows 19-year-old Esther Greenwood as she struggles with a descent into mental illness. The book was adapted for the screen in 1979 as directed by Larry Peerce, and other stars have tried to bring it to the screen, with Julia Stiles, Rose McGowan, Kirsten Dunst, and Dakota Fanning all at one point involved in various iterations that never took off.

Eilish is represented by WME, Sandbox Entertainment, and High Rise PR. Polley is represented by WME, GGA, and Circle Management. Gorman Wettels is repped by Nina Shaw at Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang.

Deadline first reported the news that Focus was boarding the project. The InSneider first reported Eilish’s involvement.

More to come…