Our Biggest Takeaways from Billie Eilish—Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)

Spoilers below.

Billie Eilish has had many collaborators, but James Cameron might be the most surprising one yet. The singer and Oscar-winning director of Titanic teamed up to helm a concert film of Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour, which is now playing in theaters—and in 3-D, no less.

Viewers of the film are transported right to the front row of Eilish’s shows alongside screaming fans, amid frantic strobe lights, thrashing along with her onstage as she performs hits like “When the Party’s Over,” “Lunch,” “Bad Guy,” “What Was I Made For?” “Birds of a Feather,” and more.

The movie is more concert film than documentary, as Cameron includes a majority of Eilish’s set list with songs performed in full. But it does include some behind-the-scenes tidbits with the singer on the road and backstage: We see her doing her own hair and makeup; treating a sprained ankle; performing warm-ups with her vocal coach, Doug; and hiding in a box as she’s wheeled to the stage. Here are the biggest takeaways from the film.

Eilish is meticulous about the creative process, but she feels free onstage.

Early on in the film, Eilish is shown reviewing concepts for her stage design, typing sometimes brutal notes in her phone. (“Floor looks bad,” for instance, is one of them.) But she is intent on creating an immersive, high-energy show for her fans. That’s evident in the light-up stage and elaborate flashing laser beams. Her goal? “To be a sensory overload in the best way,” she says.

She’s also collaborative with Cameron on how to film the concert. She traces out her movements onstage during rehearsal and suggests where to place cameras, even in tight spaces.

For this tour, as in most of the artist’s other shows, she appeared onstage solo. (Her band was situated in two pits on the stage.) Eilish was inspired by the hip-hop and rap artists she loves, usually men, who are able to energize a whole audience with their sole presence—no dancers, set pieces, or props. She wanted to feel the “freedom” they felt, running and jumping around onstage, hyping up the crowd. “I’ve never seen a girl do that,” she says.

She shows how close she is to her brother, Finneas.

On the opening night of her tour, Finneas O’Connell sent Billie flowers and a heartfelt note, according to behind-the-scenes footage in the film. Eilish was touched by the gesture and started tearing up before even reading the message. Although the siblings wrote most of her music together, this was the first time she was touring without him by her side.

Finneas shared how proud he was of his sister, writing, “It’s been the joy of my life touring the world with you,” and “Good luck, but you don’t need it.”

Eilish, sniffling through tears, sent him a text to say thanks. “You’re my favorite person to perform with,” she typed.

Luckily, the siblings still got to share the stage at one point. The film shows Finneas making a surprise appearance during a concert, accompanying Eilish for their earlier hits like “I don’t wanna be you anymore” and “Ocean Eyes.” He joined her for “Birds of a Feather” at the end, too.

Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell at the Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour Live in 3D premiere.

She empathizes with her emotional fans.

The film has plenty of cutaways to crying fans in the crowd—some with makeup streaming down their cheeks—proving just how much of an impact Eilish has on her listeners. One point of the movie even contains a collection of interviews from fans waiting outside the venue, sharing what Eilish means to them. They said her music helped them through a “dark time,” or repair their relationship with their family, or work on their mental health. “I feel so lucky that I get to do that,” Eilish says of helping people with her music.

She added that, even when she’s exhausted or frustrated while touring, she thinks about “the kid in the top row who’s just been dying for this day.” That motivates her to keep going.

While backstage, Eilish reveals multiple scratch marks and scars on her hands from high-fiving or holding her fans’ hands. She says that she’s gotten clawed quite deeply before, but she has no hard feelings. “I understand that need and desperation,” she says, because she’s been in the same position as a fan of other artists. (Remember her obsession with Justin Bieber?!) “I have so much empathy for it,” she adds.

In fact, her fans are an important part of how she approaches her work. “I want to be an artist that I want to be a fan of,” she says.

She struggled with not looking “feminine.”

Eilish is known for her signature baggy fashion, but she used to have complicated feelings about how she would present herself onstage and in public. She wants to be comfortable during her shows—hence the loose-fitting clothing—but she also remembers thinking, “I am not desirable if I’m wearing this because it’s not feminine.”

She added, “Being a young woman now who loves performing, this is something I struggled with.” Eilish noted that she’s not alone; there are myriad societal pressures on women, especially those in the spotlight, to appear, dress, and behave a certain (“palatable”) way, and they are criticized when they don’t. The singer wants girls out there to know that they can reject society’s expectations. “You don’t have to do that to be a woman,” she says.

As Cameron said in an interview with ELLE, “There’s zero objectification, 100-percent identification. She says, ‘I’m going to wear my loose clothes. I’m going to be comfortable in my own skin, not as some virtuous role model, but to be a model of truthfulness to oneself.’”

Eilish is happy if she has helped make a difference for girls “who won’t face judgment for wearing clothes like me.”