Bo Burnham made a splash with his directing debut, Eighth Grade, released with great success by A24.
Burnham transferred from standup performer to filmmaker. He started as a YouTube sensation at age 16. A dozen years later, he won the DGA award for best first film, and Eighth Grade is nominated for four Indie Spirit Awards held a day before the Oscars, February 23).
“I wasn’t one of those kids who ran around with the family camera, making movies,” he says. “Theater was my first love, and I dragged everything I learned there into standup: sound elements, staging, lighting.
“After 10 years of comedy, I wanted to try something new. As I started to film my standup specials, I realized I had been pointing toward filmmaking all along.
“I gave myself a crash course in filmmaking and I talked to A24, back when they were just distributing. Three years later, A24 began producing and a producer sent the script to Scott Rudin.
“I was able to make a transition because of luck, but I worked hard to justify it; I didn’t take it for granted, I didn’t think it should happen. Just because I had this other career, that didn’t mean I could make a seamless transition.”
“When I was doing standup and was floundering, I was alone onstage,” Burnham says. “But with film, I was never alone. It felt incredibly supportive, and oddly, less stressful.”
