Lily Bird

Bird's documented filmography kicks off — at least publicly — with Robert Eggers' The Northman in 2022. That's a significant entry point. Eggers doesn't cast carelessly, and The Northman was one of the most talked-about films of that year: a blood-soaked, mythologically dense Hamlet retelling set in the Viking Age. Getting a foothold in that production, surrounded by a cast that included Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicole Kidman, isn't nothing. Then came 2023, and Bird appeared in not one but two of the year's most discussed arthouse releases. Beau Is Afraid — Ari Aster's three-hour, deeply strange odyssey starring Joaquin Phoenix — is the kind of film that divides rooms. It's exhausting and brilliant and maddening, sometimes in the same scene. Bird's involvement places her inside one of the more polarizing studio-backed art films in recent memory. Dream Scenario arrived the same year, and it's the credit that's done the most to put her name in front of audiences. Borgli's film — think Kafkaesque office comedy crossed with a genuine meditation on virality and public perception — earned strong reviews and gave Bird material worth chewing on. Three films. Two years. All three directed by filmmakers with distinct, uncompromising visions. That's the throughline here, and it's hard to miss once you see it laid out. Whether Bird has upcoming projects in the pipeline isn't confirmed in current sources, but the trajectory she's established in this short window suggests she won't be difficult to find on screens going forward.