First look at Billie Eilish in The Bell Jar adaptation

Billie Eilish has been photographed on the set of Sarah Polley's upcoming film adaptation of The Bell Jar.

The film is based off of Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel, written under a pseudonym and published less than a month before the writer died by suicide.

The story follows Esther Greenwood, an undergraduate in 1950s Boston, who gets her dream role writing for a New York fashion magazine. She begins struggling with the reality of this role and her mental health slowly begins to deteriorate as she descends into a deep depression.

Eilish has already made her acting debut in Donald Glover and Janine Naber's Swarm. She won a People's Choice Award for TV Performance of the Year and an Independant Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series.

First look at Billie Eilish as ‘Esther Greenwood’ on set of ‘The Bell Jar’. pic.twitter.com/NTvJMSo9Kf

— Billie Eilish Charts (@eilishdata) August 3, 2026

Eilish is also the co-director on her concert tour documentary HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D), alongside James Cameron.

This follows the release of her documentary Billie Eilish: World's A Little Blurry and her first concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter To Los Angeles in 2021.

Polley is best known for directing Women Talking and Stories We Tell.

A previous adaptation of The Bell Jar was released in 1979, starring Marilyn Hassett. It received widespread negative reviews at the time.

A further adaptation was scheduled to be made in 2007 starring Julia Stiles, and again in 2016 starring Dakota Fanning with Kirsten Dunst to direct. Both of these projects were abandoned. In 2019, Showtime began development on a tv series based on the novel, which was later shelved.

The film will be distributed by Focus Feature and produced by Joy Gorman Wettels, who is most known for her work on 13 Reasons Why and Little House on the Prairie.