When Billie Eilish first stopped by The Late Late Show, she was an ascending alt-pop kid wonder. Things have moved on. The California native has conjured No. 1 singles and albums, set records, cut a James Bond theme, filled arenas and stadiums around the globe, and her name flapped from a Hollywood broadcast tower earlier in the day, courtesy of an oddball.
Eilish is back from a spell on the sidelines, contributing vocals to Labrinth’s “Never Felt So Alone” and performing with the British artist at Coachella. A headline slot at 2023 Lollapalooza awaits. James Corden, however, is on the way out. The Brit is counting the hours until he completes his eight-year stint as host of the late-night show, this Thursday.
On Wednesday night (April 25), the “Bad Guy” singer joined Natalie Portman on the couch for a chat, and a stroll down memory lane. As he’s done with his guests all week, Corden pulled up the archives, a snap of a young Eilish about to hit the stage for her debut TV performance of “Ocean Eyes.”
“I remember that I was very nervous, and I was very sick. I was sick for like many years,” she recounts. “Everything I did I was sick.”
When Corden came to visit her backstage, he was the “first celebrity I’d ever been up close to.” Now they all want to meet her. True story.
In those half-dozen years, she’s also tried her hand at acting, including a stint in Donald Glover’s Swarm series. What would a dream role look like? “When Swarm was brought up to me, I was like, this is the thing. Donald Glover is my all-time hero. My lifelong hero.”
The 21-year-old digs a festival. Nothing unusual there. Only, when she attends one, she’s enjoying it from the stage, performing to enormous crowds. Expect more of that she headlines Lollapalooza this August. “I love playing festivals. It’s one of my favorite types of shows to do.”
Standing on stage before a ridiculous volume of people, as she did at the South American leg of Lollapalooza, “it’s just a sea… endless people. It’s like a feeling I don’t get in any other aspect of my life. It’s really incredible. It’s hard to be present sometimes, but I would say festivals…it might not be all your fans or your crowd and so I feel like I have to prove something.”
Watch the interview below.
