Billie Eilish and FINNEAS describe “scary” experience of writing Oscar-winning Bond song: “We just wanted it to be perfect”Billie Eilish and FINNEAS describe “scary” experience of writing Oscar-winning Bond song: “We just wanted it to be perfect”
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Billie Eilish and brother FINNEAS took home the Oscar Sunday night for Best Original Song for “No Time to Die,” from the James Bond film of the same name. Backstage, the siblings said writing the song came with a lot of pressure, because they’re both such fans of the Bond series and its music.
“Very exhilarating and, like, peak life and also scary,” is how Billie described the experience to reporters. She added, “We just wanted it to be perfect and represent Daniel Craig‘s last film and all of his films and how much he put into it, and it just was the most amazing experience ever!”
On top of that, FINNEAS said they also felt pressure to make sure the song was true creatively to Billie’s sound and style.
“It was really important to us that it felt like a Billie Eilish song and a James Bond song at the same time and not one or the other,” he noted.
“Yeah, it was so, so important to have it all of the respect needed for all of the Bond films in the past and not take anything away from that,” Billie added. “I really didn’t want to disrespect the franchise in any way. I wanted to make everybody happy.”
“And you don’t want to feel like a cover,” FINNEAS added. “You want to feel like your song that you have ownership over.”
FINNEAS also said that he’d consulted with the most recent people who’d won an Oscar for writing a Bond theme: Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes, who wrote “Writing’s on the Wall” for 2015’s Spectre.”
He revealed, “They were very encouraging and gave really good advice, which was basically just to make a song we were really proud of.”
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