Billie Eilish Is the First Oscar Winner Born in the 21st Century and Halfway to EGOT Status with ‘No Time to Die’
Billie Eilish just set a record and is now halfway to EGOT status after she and her brother Finneas O’Connell won an Oscar for their song “No Time to Die.” Here are all the details about the win and how Eilish and O’Connell beat out the competition to record the James Bond movie song.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell won the Oscar for Best Original Song
On Mar. 27, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “No Time to Die,” the titular song for the 2021 James Bond movie.
According to Variety, this marks the third consecutive Oscar win for music in the James Bond film franchise. Adele won for “Skyfall” in 2013 for the Bon movie by the same name, and Sam smith won for “Writing’s on the Wall” for the 2015 movie Spectre.
The brother-sister duo performed a haunting version of their award-winning song live at the Oscars.
Billie Eilish became the first Oscar winner born in the 21st century and is halfway to EGOT status
Finneas O’Connell and Billie Eilish have already won several awards for “No Time to Die,” including Grammy, Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and Society of Composers & Lyricists awards.
Now, Eilish is the first Oscar winner born in the 21st century, although the 20-year-old is not the youngest to receive the honor. Czech-Icelandic songwriter Markéta Irglová’s won at age 19 for “Falling Slowly” from 2007’s Once. Eilish’s brother O’Connell is 24 years old.
The singer already made history with the song at the 2021 Grammy Awards. She was given the award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, marking the first time in the history of the Grammys that a track from an unreleased film won.
Eilish is now halfway to EGOT status. EGOT stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards, and very few have won all four awards. If Eilish earns a Tony and an Emmy in the future, she could join the ranks of stars like Audrey Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg, and John Legend.
The “Ocean Eyes” singer dabbled in live acting when she hosted and performed on Saturday Night Live in December 2021, so perhaps the elite status is not too far out of her reach.
The singer and her brother Finneas O’Connell beat out several other stars to record the James Bond movie song
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell competed against several other artists for the honor of writing the James Bond movie theme song. Eilish described the opportunity as a dream come true when she and her brother penned the piece in 2019.
The track features a 70-piece orchestra playing a composition by Hans Zimmer, with input from Eilish and O’Connell.
According to Vulture, Zimmer selected Eilish and O’Connell amid offers from several artists. “I’m not going to say who,” he said of the other musicians’ tracks, “but I am going to get myself into loads of trouble, and I don’t care: I couldn’t get past the intro.”
But Zimmer said when he heard Eilish and O’Connell’s version, he thought, “That’s the vibe. That’s the everything. It’s a perfect movie song. In its quietness, somehow, you have a huge landscape in front of you.”
