At ages 22 and 26, respectively, Billy Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell became the youngest winners of two Academy Awards; both victories came from the Best Original Song category.
Key Facts
- Eilish and O’Connell, who won their second Oscar in the category, took home the Best Original Song Oscar for “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie.”
- The songwriting team had won for the title track from “No Time To Die” just two years prior, making Eilish, who was only 20 years old at the time, the second-youngest winner in the category.
- “What Was I Made For?” won out over three other candidates, including “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony,” “Flamin’ Hot” from “The Fire Inside,” and “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” – “I’m Just Ken,” another nominee from “Barbie,” also lost.
- During the event, Eilish and O’Connell performed “What Was I Made For?” much like all the other candidates for Original Songs.
Only three persons had won two Oscars by the age of thirty before Eilish and O’Connell’s historic win, and they had all come from the Best Actress category. Luise Rainer, then 28 years old, received her second Oscar in 1937 and 1938 for her roles in “The Good Earth” and “The Great Zigfield.” At the age of 26, Jodie Foster won for “The Accused” in 1989, and at the age of 29, for “The Silence of the Lambs” in 1992. At thirty years old, Hilary Swank won her second Oscar in 2000 for “Boys Don’t Cry” and her first in 2005 for “Million Dollar Baby.”
“What Was I Made For?” was a huge success at the February Grammy Awards, when it took home the Best Song Written for Visual Media and Song of the Year awards for Eilish and O’Connell. With over 700 million Spotify plays, the song was a commercial success as well.
Eilish became the first person born in the twenty-first century to win an Academy Award when she took home her first one in 2022.