Ludwig Goransson accepts the award for best original score for "Oppenheimer" during the Oscars on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
LOS ANGELES (AP) – What were Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell made for? Winning awards, apparently. The sibling duo’s “Barbie” blockbuster ballad “What Was I Made For?” won the Academy Award for best original song on Sunday night.
In doing so, Eilish, 22, has become the y oungest person by far to have won two career Oscars.
That beats a very old record set by Luise Rainer, who won her second best actress Oscar at 28 in 1938.
The second youngest is now Eilish’s 26-year-old brother and co-writer Finneas. The pair won their first Oscar for “No Time to Die” in 2021.
Hilary Swank and Jodie Foster – a best supporting actor nominee this year – are the only others to win two before 30.
They beat out another “Barbie” cut, “I’m Just Ken,” as performed by Ryan Gosling and written by “Barbie the Album” executive producer Mark Ronson and his creative partner Andrew Wyatt. Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson’s “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony,” Diane Warren’s “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” and Scott George’s “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon” rounded out the category.
Eilish and O’Connell are no strangers to the Oscar stage. In fact, they’re now two for two. Previously, they took home the trophy for their James Bond theme “No Time to Die” in 2021. That year, they beat out some impressive names, including Beyoncé, Van Morrison, Lin-Manuel Miranda and once again, Warren.
In the months leading up to the Academy Awards, “What Was I Made For?” has raked in numerous trophies: In 2024 alone, they’ve won a Golden Globe for best original song and two Grammys. Not bad for a song written about an 11.5-inch-tall plastic doll.
“What Was I Made For?” debuted at No. 34 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, eventually peaking at No. 14.
In the “Barbie” film, “What Was I Made For?” plays a key role – an instrumental version of the song pops up like a leitmotif, soundtracking introspective, existential moments for its protagonist. Eilish’s voice isn’t heard until the final scene, but at that point, the audience is well-prepared for its emotional impact.
Clearly, the duo excel at making music for movies. Before “Barbie” and Bond, three songs they wrote made it on Disney’s “Turning Red” soundtrack, pulling heavily from the likes of (asterisk)NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.
In another music category, Ludwig Göransson won the Academy Award for original score for his work on “Oppenheimer.” It is his second Oscar and third nomination, having previously won in the category in 2019 for “Black Panther.”
In doing so, Göransson beat John Williams (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) and three first-time nominees, Jerskin Fendrix (“Poor Things”) Laura Karpman (“American Fiction”) and the late Robbie Robertson (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).
“Oppenheimer” is director Christopher Nolan ‘s own adaptation of Martin J. Sherwin and Kai Bird’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” chronicling the Manhattan Project and its fallout.
The film starring Cillian Murphy “is poised between the shock and aftershock of the terrible revelation, as one character calls it, of a divine power,” AP film writer Jake Coyle assessed in his review. Naturally, the score accomplishes something similar: Göransson composing from a first-person perspective for the first time, using his characteristic plays with rhythm and tempo to make one man’s history-altering endeavors feel larger than life.
“To be recognized on this score especially, it was a very personal score,” Göransson told The Associated Press when the nominations were announced in January. “It was also obviously extremely challenging to achieve these emotions and to tell the story of this complicated man’s feelings, his ambition and what he’s going through in his journey and from his perspective because the only way to do that is, I’ve had to go to some to some uncomfortable places.”
He added that “the way that Chris Nolan uses music in his storytelling is so unique and special and inspiring.”
“So, give all the music awards to Nolan and his collaborators,” he said. “I’m just very grateful to be working with him, and this is our second film together.”
Their first film together was the 2020 time-bending thriller “Tenet.”
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