It’s safe to say that Billie Eilish was a hit at the Oscars. In addition to winning an Academy Award herself for “What Was I Made For?,” Eilish blew fans away with the performance of the song.
Several viewers took to social media to praise Eilish and her Oscar performance. For many, it was the highlight of the show. One person wrote on X, “Billie Ellish was brilliant. Great song for a not great movie and great performance.”
Another wrote, “Not me crying at Billie Ellish performance 😭…. I honestly just be crying at everything nowadays.”
Prior to taking the stage, Eilish got candid with Los Angeles Times about her performance. She hoped to avoid any mishaps while performing. In particular, she feared accidentally stumbling on stage.
She said, “I just don’t want to break anything. I don’t want to stumble. I don’t want to spill anything. Then the Grammys is like your homie’s party and we’re here and I know you guys, I love it. It’s friends, it’s whatever. The Oscars is the coolest kids. What do the cool kids do at the table? I don’t know. It’s very intimidating. Performing at the Oscars, which I’ve done now twice: Terrifying. Horribly terrifying. But in a great way. I love it.”
Billie Eilish Talks The Creative Process Behind Song
Fortunately, none of Eilish’s fears came to pass. The musician’s performance went through with flying colors. In the interview, Eilish also talked about performing the song in general. The tune required her to fully commit as an artist. Eilish couldn’t take any half measures.
She said, “I think to an extent, yeah. It’s performing, and I think all kinds of performing, it’s all about committing. You can’t go half-hard when you do so. It wasn’t dissimilar to how I’ve sung a lot in my life, but I think in that specific time, especially the key that we wrote it in and the phrasing and how long the phrases are when there are certain breaths within the phrasing, it makes all of it completely different. And it was definitely the hard choice.”
She continued, “I don’t know what could have been harder for me. I think that the way that I wanted it to sound was going to be the way that it was the most challenging, and it may not sound challenging, but it is. It’s really hard to sing really, really softly and convey the message you want. But I also want it to be very enunciated and I wanted you to hear what I was saying, but also feel it. So it was a mixture of both.”