Billie Eilish has recalled a dark episode while writing a song for the Barbie soundtrack as she dedicated an award for the track to people feeling “existential dread”.
The 22-year-old American singer was honoured along with her songwriter brother, Finneas O’Connell, with the chairman’s gong at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for What Was I Made For? on Thursday.
On stage, Eilish said: “I would really like to say that this award and any, all recognition that this song gets, I just want to dedicate to anyone who experiences hopelessness and the feeling of existential dread, and feeling like: ‘What’s the point? And why am I here, and why am I doing this?’
“I think we all feel like that occasionally, but I think if somebody like me, with the amount of privilege that I have and the incredible things that I get to do and be and how I have really not wanted to be here and – sorry to be dark – damn, but I’ve spent a lot of time feeling that way.
“And I just want to say to anyone who feels that way to be patient with yourself and know that it is, I think, worth it all, and I think it’s great to be alive now.”
She recalled that when she and O’Connell were asked to write this song she “was in a dark episode, I guess, and things didn’t make sense in life”.
Eilish added: “I just didn’t understand what the point was and why you would keep going. (I was) just questioning everything in the world.”
She also spoke about viewing the Greta Gerwig-directed movie with O’Connell, saying: “I was just watching Barbie say and feel things that I really, really, really resonated with and felt so close to. I felt so seen, and I did not expect that.
“I was watching Barbie and seeing things and I think that this movie is the most incredible, most empowering and beautiful and funny and just unbelievable piece of art in the world, and I’m so, so honoured to be a part of it.”
Barbie became the highest-grossing film of the year at the UK and Ireland box office as the movie.
Based on the Mattel doll, Barbie raked in £67.5 million three weeks after its release in July.
At the 35th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards, Mulligan received the international star award for Maestro, a biographical based on the life of composer Leonard Bernstein.
By Charlotte McLaughlin, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
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