Billie Eilish is set to make her acting debut in Donald Glover‘s Swarm.
The Happier Than Ever singer will mark her arrival in acting with a previously unannounced role in the new Amazon Prime Video series. The show is co-created by the Childish Gambino star and Janine Nabers.
Eilish is just one of many unexpected supporting players who crosses paths with Dominique Fishback’s Dre. And, in a new clip from the show, released on Prime Video’s Twitter, a blonde-haired Eilish can be seen in character hypnotically talking to Dre – see below.
"Did you hurt someone?"🩸@SwarmOnPrime, out tomorrow pic.twitter.com/RTnTIVnR29
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) March 16, 2023
The series follows a young woman named Dre whose obsession with one of the world’s biggest pop stars as well as an unexpected trauma involving her sister, Marissa (Chloe Bailey), sets her on a dark journey across the country.
As Dre continues on her increasingly violent path, she encounters characters played by Damson Idris (Marissa’s boyfriend, Khalid) as well as Byron Bowers, Kiersey Clemons, Paris Jackson, internet personality Rickey Thompson, Rory Culkin and American Auto breakout X Mayo.
Though Eilish has appeared in several music documentaries and has voiced a version of herself for The Simpsons‘ short, ‘When Billie Met Lisa’, Swarm is the singer’s first fully scripted role as an actor.
The idea to add her to the ensemble came from casting director Carmen Cuba, as per Entertainment Tonight, who knew that the singer wanted to get into acting. The website goes on to state that for Glover, casting Eilish, provided an opportunity to play up the “meta commentary about fandoms and followers.”
“We were really interested in creating an antihero story,” showrunner Nabers recently told Vanity Fair. She and Glover took inspiration from characters like Mad Men’s Don Draper, The Sopranos’ Tony Soprano, but created a new version “through the lens of a Black, modern-day woman”.
The show premiered at SXSW in the US on March 10, and lands on Amazon Prime Video tomorrow on March 17 (Friday).