Billie Eilish pulled out all the stops for her Saturday Night Live debut. The 17-year-old singer's performance of "Bad Guy" thrilled viewers thanks to a complicated special effect that made it appear as if she was walking up walls and on the ceiling. It turns out, Eilish can't defy gravity. However, she and her team can carefully choreograph a rotating box to make it appear as if the prodigy is having a Houdini-inspired moment, and SNL broke down the specifics in a behind-the-scenes video.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
In the video, Eilish explained that the scene was inspired by Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire, and she first demonstrated her vision using a shoebox. Basically, a recreation of the SNL stage was placed in a hamster-wheel type mechanism that turned. The crew attached the camera to the mechanism so it would follow the movements, making it always appear as if the floor of the recreation stayed on the ground.
If that's hurting your brain, Eilish doesn't blame you.
"We have had more rehearsal time than any other thing we've done," she continued. To make matters worse, she also had two sprained ankles during the performance. So, all the fancy footwork needed to stay upright as her surroundings shifted had to be even fancier.
“The fact that they even trusted us to pull this off is really big, because I don’t even know if I would’ve,” she added. “I know they’ve never done anything like it, so I’m really, really grateful that they were open to it and understood and believed in us, and believed in me."
Luckily, even if she did mess up, it wouldn't be the end of the world — just ask Aidy Bryant.