Billie Eilish on Capturing Connection to Fans in James Cameron Concert Film (Exclusive)

Billie Eilish and director James Cameron chatted with “Extra” at CinemaCon 2026 about their immersive new concert film “Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D).” 

Billie and James shared how they initially connected with Eilish explaining, “When the first ‘Avatar' came out when I was a little kid. I was blown away by it and also really upset that I couldn't then live in the world of Avatar aka Pandora.”

James quipped, "You got post-Pandora depression.”

Billie insisted, "Which is an actual thing by the way and I absolutely had that as a 7-, 8-year-old and also as a kid, I wasn't thinking, like, 'James Cameron made this movie,' I was just thinking this is an amazing movie and then you know hearing his name all the time for my entire life you know everybody knows you so.”

Cameron shared, "I was aware of you as an artist for a long time... even as a kid when you were breaking in at 13, you know, just always had this amazing presence, creative presence, right? And the fact that you wrote yourself, sang yourself, wrote with Phineas and that it was just this really kind of family oriented thing, you know?”

He went on, "So, I was aware of you and then my wife and Billie's mom, Maggie, got to be friends around plant-based diets, which is a big thing for us… So, I met Maggie on a film that we were going to make together… and we were talking about doing it in 3D and I was showing her 3D stuff and ultimately I sent her an email that said, ‘Hey, Why don't we shoot Billie's show in 3D,' and so your mom introduced us and then the rest is history.”

Joking over whose name goes first since Billie has a producer credit. James said it is alphabetical, "So technically I'm first but it's obviously... and I made this clear from the beginning, 'This is your show.' I mean I literally say it in the movie.”

Billie also said she and James were very much in sync, sharing, “What was so amazing about the process was how on the same page we were on not changing the show… It was really important to me and also for Jim to make it exactly how the show already was and just turn it into this beautiful thing that we'll have forever and have it in 3D and have this technology used that's never been used before.”

James added, “Right from the beginning, I said, 'Look, I'm not here to direct. I'm here to witness, to bear witness, and to celebrate.' Because you had created this amazing thing. I saw it two nights in Melbourne, and my mind was just racing like, 'How are we going to shoot this? How do we capture?’”

He went on, "Billie runs all the way around and plays to the audience on all four quadrants almost equally throughout the entire show… it's an athletic event… Aside from a beautiful singing performance and a very physical dancing performance. And she's the only one on the stage except during the acoustic number where she has her two singers."

Plus, Billie opened up about really wanting to capture her connection with the fans. 

Eilish said, "It makes me think about how my main worry about filming a show is that the thing that I want to capture is really hard to capture, which is me and the fans relationship through the show… That was, like, a big thing that I was like, ‘You need to film the fans and you need to have me in the shot with them.’”

The singer added, "I think that can be really hard to capture… so I really was like, ‘We need to do the show and the fans and my connection with them justice.' And we did.”