Bo Burnham interview: Going back to 'Eighth Grade'
Photo courtesy of Marco Cerritos
One of the biggest hits of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival was the coming of age story “Eighth Grade”, a piercing look at adolescence and growing up. Written and directed by prolific comedian Bo Burnham, the movie serves as an unofficial time machine back to middle school and may cause viewers to compulsively squirm in their seats.
While the thought of going back to a place we’d rather forget might sound terrible at first, Burnham’s screenplay wisely focuses “Eighth Grade” on the introverted Kayla Day, a character who awkwardly navigates middle school the way most of us would. She serves as the audience surrogate and, as played by newcomer Elsie Fisher, is the heart and soul of the movie.
Up to this point, Burnham has been mostly known as a multifaceted comedian with his popular Netflix special “Make Happy” as well as directing other concert performances for comedians Chris Rock and Jerrod Carmichael. “Eighth Grade” threatens to take him to a completely new level, and, according to Burnham himself, he is ready to take whatever comes his way. The fact that a 27 year old man could tap into the head of middle school adolescence has been the talk of the festival circuit since the film’s Sundance debut in January.
Bo Burnham recently traveled to San Francisco to promote “Eighth Grade”, and we spoke about his process tackling his first narrative feature. The following is a transcription of that conversation.
Q: How has traveling with this film from city to city going for you so far?
Bo Burnham: It’s been fun. I’ve been meeting a lot of great people.
Q: Especially on the festival circuit, I’m sure.
Burnham: Absolutely. Those film festival Q&A’s are where I meet a lot of people.
Q: Film festival Q&A’s can sometimes be very rough on filmmakers. As the person who has been traveling with the film the most and answering the bulk of those questions, how do you feel about that process?
Burnham: I think this film inspires some good questions. Even the simple questions I’ve gotten have inspired great answers. It hasn’t been just people asking me simple things like…
Q: “What was it like working with so-and-so?”
Burnham: Yes!
Q: “Do you have any funny stories from the set?”
Burnham: (laughs) You definitely know which questions to avoid. Maybe I’m just a loser who likes to talk, but I always feel engaged by good questions. I have sat through bullshit Q&A’s and those are terrible.
Q: Watching this film feels like stepping into a time machine and going back to middle school. The weirdness and insecurities of growing up are anchored with your lead Elsie Fisher. How closely did you have to work with her as a writer/director to get her in the headspace she needed to be to pull this off?
Burnham: She was already there. She’s a gifted actor and not a terrified kid. She understood what was happening, and that’s exactly what I wanted. She was able to tap into the emotions of Kayla very easily. It was more getting her comfortable to be inarticulate. Especially because this movie is about someone who can’t express themselves and communicate the way they want to.
Q: Did she ever come to you with something that she felt was out of bounds and didn’t want to try?
Burnham: No and I was very upfront with her about stepping back if certain things weren’t working. The most embarrassing stuff for her was talking about “Rick and Morty” on camera because that stuff hits home for her. The pool party scene looks intense in the film, but in between takes she was running around and playing with the other kids and having fun. It’s not some method acting thing for her, she has the ability to snap in and out of it. I didn’t need to make her feel like shit to have her play a person who feels terrible.
Q: The car scene toward the end of the film was also intense.
Burnham: It was also intense for a different reason because we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot it.
Q: How does your process work when you’re collaborating with more seasoned performers like Chris Rock on his stand-up special “Tamborine?”
Burnham: Stand-up is not a director’s medium. My job is just to serve Chris and make a vision for his act. When I direct a stand-up special I try to recreate the feeling I get when I watch the show as an audience member.
Q: You’ve been very prolific these last few years, is there something you feel you haven’t done yet that you’d like to do?
Burnham: I might want to do a musical in the future, but that’s a very long term project. Maybe I’ll do it in my thirties because a musical takes about six or seven years to make. That could be a fun long term thing.
Q: This film focuses on an eighth grade girl, but how much of it deals with your experiences as an eighth grade male?
Burnham: A lot of the things in this movie deal with my experiences as a 27 year old man. For example, I was having panic attacks in the back of a theater before a show instead of having them in a bathroom before a pool party. I see myself in the character of Kayla more now that I did as an actual eighth grader.
“Eighth Grade” is now playing in limited release.
