Billie Eilish Makes Her Acting Debut On Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Swarm’
Billie Eilish attends the Los Angeles premiere of Prime Video's "Swarm" at Lighthouse Artspace LA on March 14, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
Billie Eilish has made her acting debut in a role seemingly fit for the brooding songstress. In a sci-fi thriller series, out today (March 17) on Amazon Prime Video, Eilish stars as Eva in Swarm. The 21-year-old singer plays a hypnotist in the Donald Glover-created series.
Appearing in the fourth episode, Eva snaps her fingers and gets a young woman named Dre (Dominique Fishback) to change her name back from someone named Kayla. Once that’s accomplished, Billie’s character says to her, “Tell me something you regret.” As a tear rolls down Dre’s face, we then see a montage of Dre performing all sorts of dirty deeds — including wiping up a bloody crime scene. In the clip, Dre is usually in tears. Back in her office, Eva asks Dre, “Did you hurt someone?” When Dre responds with a yes, Billie’s character smiles and says, “Very good.”
The series follows Dre’s obsessions with one of the world’s biggest pop stars and forces her on a dark, twisted journey across the country. It seems obvious that the pop star at the center of the story, named Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), has plenty in common with Beyoncé. Ni’Jah’s cult-like fanbase is called Swarm, very similar to Beyoncé’s BeyHive. The limited series will also feature Chloe Bailey, Damson Idris, Paris Jackson, Bryron Bowers, Kiersey Clemons, Rickey Thompson and Rory Culkin.
Billie Eilish's 10 Best Music Videos
Billie Eilish has put out her fair share of music videos since 2016, starting with her breakthrough single, “Ocean Eyes.” Since then, the now 22-year-old singer-songwriter has created some of the most visually stunning videos any female artist her age has ever accomplished. Two of her music videos have received over 1 billion views on YouTube: her collaborative song “lovely” with Khalid and 2019’s hit, “bad guy.” She has 24 other music videos that have over 100 million views on the site alone.
Eilish’s first studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? released in 2019 as one of the best-selling albums of the year, which she received multiple Grammys for. The 14-song album featured such hits as “you should see me in a crown,” “all the good girls go to hell,” “bury a friend,” and “when the party’s over.” The following year, Eilish performed the theme song “No Time to Die” for the James Bond film of the same name, which is arguably one of her most moving songs to date. By 2021, Billie released her second studio album, Happier Than Ever, which featured the song of the same name, as well as “my future,” “Your Power,” and “NDA.”
As we previously reported, the musician thought her career was over before she got a big break in 2023 with the Barbie film soundtrack. Before she and her frequent collaborator and brother FINNEAS penned “What Was I Made For?”, Eilish was honestly concerned about her music career. “I was honestly like, ‘Damn, maybe I hit my peak, and I don’t know how to write anymore?’” she said during The Hollywood Reporter‘s songwriter roundtable in November. She credits the call from Barbie director Greta Gerwig for saving her and Finneas from the despairing slump. “It brought us out of it, and immediately we were inspired and wrote so much more after that.” The song has now been streamed over a billion times.
Below, we have ranked her best 10 so far, in celebration of the singer’s birthday today (December 18):
Laila Abuelhawa is the Top 40 and Hip-Hop pop culture writer for Beasley Media Group. Being with the company for over three years, Laila's fierce and fabulous red-carpet rankings have earned her a feature on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert!' Her favorite stories are those surrounding the latest in celebrity fashion, television and film rankings, and how the world reacts to major celebrity news. With a background in journalism, Laila's stories ensure accuracy and offer background information on stars that you wouldn't have otherwise known. She prides herself in covering stories that inform the public about what is currently happening and what is to come in the ever-changing, ever-evolving media landscape.
