There were plenty of firsts during this year’s Oscars ceremony, including West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose becoming the first openly queer woman to win an Oscar. And it turns out that Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas’ win for Best Original Song made Oscars history, too.
With the award, Eilish is now the youngest artist to win three awards for the same song. This awards season, she took home an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Golden Globe. The singer also became the first Oscar winner to be born in the 2000s.
Eilish and Finneas beat out Lin-Manuel Miranda, (nominated for Encanto’s “Dos Oruguitas”) who would’ve achieved EGOT status if he’d won. The pair also performed the song, “No Time To Die,” at the Oscars before accepting the award, accompanied by strings and percussion.
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Eilish’s win for the song comes two years after its debut in February 2020. Eilish and her brother were approached by James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli to write the theme song for the Bond movie of the same name in 2019.
Eilish told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that they were given parts of the script for background on what themes to focus on. After working on the demo, the siblings collaborated with Hans Zimmer, who composed the orchestration, and recorded the song with a 70-person orchestra. Johnny Marr was also featured in the song on the guitar.
Though Zimmer wasn’t credited for this particular award, he didn’t leave the Oscars empty-handed. He won Best Original Score for his compositions for Dune. The famed composer couldn’t attend the ceremony, but received his award at 2 a.m. in Amsterdam while wearing a bathrobe.
He tweeted, “It’s 2am in Amsterdam, and my daughter Zoë woke me up to go to the hotel bar. Wow!!” In a video celebrating his late night win, Zimmer thanked the musicians he worked on the soundtrack with, who are currently touring with him.
