Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell just made Oscar history.
With their original song win for the existential ballad “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie,” Eilish, 22, and O’Connell, 26, became, respectively, the youngest and second-youngest people ever to win a second Oscar. The sibling pop duo — who took home the Grammy for song of the year for the melancholic “Barbie” hit last month — scored their first Oscar two years ago for the James Bond theme song “No Time to Die.”
Previously, the record for the youngest person ever to score two Oscars was held by actress Luise Rainer, who was 28 when she won her second lead actress award in 1938 for her performance in the drama “The Good Earth” after winning the same prize the previous year for “The Great Ziegfeld.”
Accepting the prize, Eilish said: “I had a nightmare about this last night,” then exploded into laughter. “I feel so incredibly lucky and honored.” She also shouted out to a former music teacher: “You didn’t like me, but you’re good at your job.”
Eilish was already among the youngest Oscar winners ever. In the original song category, the record still belongs to Czech singer-songwriter Markéta Irglová, who was 19 when she shared the prize with co-star Glen Hansard for the ballad “Falling Slowly” from the film “Once.”
Just a handful of people have managed to win two Oscars by age 30. Jodie Foster achieved the feat at age 29 with her second lead actress win for her performance in “The Silence of the Lambs,” while Hilary Swank was 30 when she scored her second win in the same category for “Million Dollar Baby.”
In winning the original song prize, Eilish and O’Connell beat out another nominee from “Barbie,” “I’m Just Ken,” along with the songs “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” and “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony.”