Eighth Grade: Bo Burnham in Conversation with Teen Vogue’s Lauren Duca

oh thank you so much for clapping let's snap throughout that's a thing the young people have talked about the flow of conversation it's great this is an incredible movie I was just telling both that I saw hereditary and I reached out to a24 and you know hereditary it's horrifying disturbing movie they were like we have eighth grade too for you I was like that's gonna deliver I think and it absolutely does despite very little trauma I'm happening in the film and I think a lot of what this movie is is you're bracing for impact and these all-encompassing tiny moments in a lot of ways it's about anxiety which i think is what you set out to write about can you tell us how you connected the story of anxiety to the story of being in eighth grade yeah really I just tried to set up to talk about how it was feeling at the time that I was wanting to write this which I was feeling nervous I was feeling strange I was feeling uncertain of myself in the world I didn't know how to process it I didn't know how to process myself I was sweating a lot eighth grade I mean I kind of liked it really did feel like that it felt like we were sort of maybe feels like our culture isn't kind of going through a bit of an eighth grade moment it seems like it's functioning at an eighth grade level maybe right now so if I like maybe a good way to go after it but but yeah so I didn't set up to make a story about a young person I really just set out to make a story about how I was feeling and then stumbled on this world but I've always I had always been interested in middle school I felt like it was incredibly underrepresented for a reason I think we want to remember high school and we we want to forget middle school and a lot a lot of what's happening when you're when you're in middle school on the internet you have a sense of permanence that you have kind of learned in Reverse so you you are you know you're entering the world you're entering kept being catapulted celebrity at a time when we didn't understand a thing that is now ingrained yeah in the young person's experience of middle school yeah how did you study that from the current perspective you know I just really defer to the kids I mean like I think a problem sometimes I mean I did not want to make a nostalgic movie I did not want to make a movie that was my own experience or my own or my own past experience I didn't want it to be a memory because I was you know my disconnect from the world and from the main character is twofold you know I was never a 13 year old girl I was also number 13 now you know in both of those things I think lend themselves to a very specific experience that I couldn't know so really was just like let the kids author themselves and just the good thing about the generation you want to learn anything about them they are posting everything about themselves online so like the research is there you just have to you have to clear your google history when you're researching when you're researching middle school pool party you might want to hear the search history so you watch a lot of YouTube videos for this and I we have a clip of one that is in the film if we can play that now hey guys Kayla back here with another video okay so the topic of today's video is putting yourself out there okay so like what does that mean where is there well there can be anywhere that you wouldn't usually go you know maybe because it's like weird or scary or something like that that is so that's a wonderful amazing part of the movie is she Caleb puts a friend who hasn't seen it makes these YouTube videos and is exploring herself through them can you talk about that and how you saw young people kind of figuring out their sense of self performing it it was the initial impulse for the script was just these videos of young people trying to express themselves online I watched hundreds of them the boys tended to talk about Minecraft and the girls tended to talk about their souls so it was like probably gotta write about a girl but it really was like they're the failure to try to articulate yourself was so compelling to me and it's the thing that for me and a lot of teen movies is erased it's it's kids that are yeah fumbling through the circumstances of their life and the circumstances of their life aren't perfect but they're able to perfectly articulate their own place within it and you know when you feel young people in film that have an ability to articulate themselves that is suspiciously similar to a screenwriters to articulate himself you know part of it part of the experience of being young being alive being anybody is the gulf between the idea of the thing you have in your head in the way it comes out of your face you know and so yeah like and when I watch her I really and that is written you know I mean that the monologue is written like um yeah okay so the thing about being yourself is like wait I'm reading this awful piece of paper I'm soon you guys are in the script yes yeah it's very intentional I can show you eight takes where she stumbles in the same exact place but when I watch it I really do see her thinking and that is all to the credit of Elsie Elsie Fisher the actor that's playing that role I feel like I see a kid struggling to think and and verbalize that and that's incredibly powerful and it's all her and so much of that is interior which is hard I mean we have a lot of content that centralizes around adolescence or it's geared towards it as an audience is bombastic and it's larger than life and it's fantasy or it's like you know 32 year old Pilates instructors about you know each other but lockers yes it's a lot of the granular like in this every moment of my life just being a middle schooler it feels insanely intense exactly how did you tap into that yeah well that that's sort of why I think like kids connect to Harry Potter for example is not because it's escapism I think it's realism to them walking over and talking to your crush feels like walking over to slay the basilisk it feels that intense so part of the movie was like can you somehow get those feelings out of what is a the normal circumstances of a kid's life and yeah like part of that thing's the struggle of the of the character in the movie and the movie is feeling like I am failing to deliver in the way that cultural standards sort of sets for me which that cultural standard the most part is set by movies like you said 30 year old Pilates instructors going like I'm a freshman you're not like you're you're here 27 that's that's important not just like visually it's important like the way an actor we didn't want it to feel like someone looking back on their experience and you can feel that when it's an older actor then I'm gonna be a kid now so I'm gonna play a kid you know as opposed to be that I don't know what that person like 1919-20 is like Pele pinwheel hat like we wanted to feel not like not like a kid or anyone looking back on their experience but someone looking out from within their experience and you know Elsie graduated eighth grade a week later we started filming a week after we stopped filming she went to her freshman year of high school which is like she's in it and she didn't get into her school play that's the story of which is true I know I heard her say an interview - that she writes true yeah night and I said Mr Dona from Thousand Oaks High School is a piece of that's his real name that's his that's a real man's name so into harass him on the internet though okay he doesn't know about this movie at all he's downstairs in the elliptical right now a lot of how else he uses these these videos just to cope and to express herself how did you first use the internet back when it was like YouTube as a starting phenomena and MySpace yeah you know when I say when I say I was on myspace two kids I feel like I'm being like and I and I went on MySpace and I bought a hamburger for a nickel yeah it's really sound like that whole but like at that time the internet was much more like a bulletin board yeah I mean it was sort of like he got something cool posted like just show what you have and now it's much more a place to live and be like MySpace it was like you know you got a profile picture and your top eight friends which was insane but you yeah right and like some of your interests lists them and now it's Twitter Instagram what do you look like what do you think what do you look like what do you think so the internet asks much baser questions of us now I think and YouTube at that time it really was a place to like you got a little skin or something put it up there but the sort of world of what she is doing which is like really represent yourself and and in theory transparent and honest that I thought that is new not something I was doing at that age okay it feels like these are two ends of kind of like Oh a wider gap in how we might think of the Internet how did you approach that divide and the way it separate keep them from connecting yeah I'm right between them yeah yeah I am thirteen years apart from either you know she's thirteen I'm you know I was 26 it's 27 at the time and you know he's 13 years older than that I won't say his age I'll just heavily imply it with simple arithmetic [Laughter] yeah so I felt like both of them you know I mean I felt like a scared young kid on the Internet and I felt like an out-of-touch dude that has no idea what she's going through and all I can do is be like keep going I mean like I hope you're all right or something so yeah so I feel like I feel like that because that I had to sort of give voice to my own limited perspective which was that I don't know what these kids are going through as much as I feel like it I feel like the elde I feel like the elders an elder of the internet generation I mean I'm just like the oldest Internet person that has gotten to get here first to be able to make something about it but I think as you see more young people start to get power and be able to make stuff you'll see the Internet talked about in more subtle terms and rather and not so much in the terms that it's talked about now and call in culture which to me it feels like the equivalent of like a Taco Bell commercial where it's like hashtag chalupa that's like honestly how I feel like the Internet's talked about it's like very like just feels old and dusty and strange yeah there's a lot of commentary about the Internet yes exactly that seems to not actually quite understand how people are using them yeah exactly exactly it's it's way too much commentary not enough description there's a we don't even gathered the raw materials to have a conversation about it if you are floating above the internet looking down on it you actually have no first-person experience to talk about it and if you actually experience it you'll find that participating in the internet and being within it robs you of your ability to articulate something long form it is very very tough to talk about it and also even for the people that you understand it for me like trying to satirize the intern is just toothless it just doesn't work because like Geico is commercials are satirizing the internet Old Spice commercials are satirizing the internet so like how is that cool what do you like John I'm saying for me to do a sort of high wire fast-paced crazy satire of the Internet is talking about the Internet on the Internet's terms and I think we wanted to talk about it in the way that in the way that the Internet ignores which is the Internet ignores maybe sort of quieter gentler moments yeah and there's sort of something that I feel like if you're required or gentle or average person there's a pressure to be something bigger to live something prettier and also an intentionality of you know putting something out there in a way that feels like you are walking in to a sense of self I guess building off of you know you you have things you did in 2006 when you were 16 right that are still out there in the world how does that feel to be in your research a teenager now feeling like everything I put out that isn't on Instagram stories or snapchat is kind of my personality profile forever yeah well I've tried to just very you know people who don't know I posted a lot of YouTube videos when I was in you know 16 17 18 19 funny songs which like funny edgy songs which like the edgy you know comedy of a 16 year old in 2006 does not really square with the you cultural moment of 2018 pretty clearly there really aren't or square with me personally now so I've tried to you know be pretty transparent about that and say like I'm sort of living out loud like a lot of us are and I'm growing and I'm changing and yeah for my issue is more I don't know I try not to think about this sort of like me I think everyone has this pressure to sort of like think of their own brand and their own narrative and where they're going and what they represent and and all focusing on that too much for me has just led to anxiety and sort of oblivion and it's much better for me to just sort of take moments as they come try to be forgiving of myself we're going to get to a moment where every presidential candidate has the embarrassing stuff they did when they were 14 and 15 all over the internet and we're gonna have to do some sort of like amnesty program or everyone's good or something III don't know so that that's the balance it's like we should absolutely be holding people accountable but can we also allow young people to and everyone to you know live and fail and learn I don't know what the balance is there's something there's something fraught right now without getting too into the news of just being able to be hung on those past mistakes has that ever hasn't is that something you've ever encountered or do you feel like you're dishonest you're like I don't apologize for being an idiot at 16 I apologize for being oh you do oh no I totally do I'm not gonna delete the videos I just actually feel like that's me pretending like I wasn't that and I want to be an example for people to show like you can start here and it's it there I mean I disavowed these things I would publicly trash talk my old stuff before anyone cared to even you know no one even cares who I am and say we weren't talking about it but like yeah I mean I'll disavow literally anything I did eight months ago I mean like from bad to the beheading I'm like I I'm trying you know so yeah but I understand it I understand I certainly understand in the current cultural moment when it feels like the infrastructure of America has absolutely no justice built into it that we're kind of trying to seek justice in other places so I absolutely understand that yeah on how did your parents so we have building off of hurt if parents now dealing with the internet how did your parents first it was more of a wild last about my mother's storming any being like you need to take those things just funny why did my mother like some weird like far side cartoon but um she ya know they were cool they were fine I got a fun family that's alright they just were worried about like my mother was worried about the truth which is like this is gonna be up here forever and your immortalizing your sixteen-year-old sensibilities what what if you go for a job interview in when you're 29 you know I mean which is why my real name's Robert my mother they wanted to call me beau the entire time but my mother wanted to give me the name Robert in case I became a doctor and I became the opposite of a doctor but yeah so they have that concern which is understandable but but yeah I don't know I wonder I wonder if that's a bad or not can you talk a little bit about gender differences also you know the minecraft for souls thing or the way boys in general seem to have seemed to have an easier time at high school but I think if we're talking to more evolved adult men now that's not always the case things are kind of under this I don't have feelings mmm venir how do you feel like there are gender differences and using the internet as an outlet or otherwise yeah I wonder like I definitely think just observing it appears that the internet and just culture asks way deeper questions of young women than it does young men at a very early age you know young men are just kind of asked like what do you like and young women are asked like who are you very very quickly and that's what I was sort of interested in I also think like just having been around hundreds of thirteen-year-old kids like that self-awareness is just turned on way quicker in girls I don't know if it's innately culturally whatever it is like they just are aware of themselves in a way that the boys I wasn't until I was a sophomore in high school but yeah it's also like you see like the school dances and the boys are like four inches short of nickels they're like oh sorry I don't I don't know I think that stuff is changing super super quickly super quickly I've noticed just like in the last five years of touring colleges and seeing kids that that I don't know they're taking that I don't even want to speak with authority on that because like really I tried in the movie to just provide a platform for them to express that truth not for me to be in charge of it yeah it seems like you wanted to avoid being instructive with this there's not you know it's it's a taste of the experience but not a lesson in how to handle it on for parents or kids did you was intentional that you didn't stay away from moralistic kind of message yeah just know like finger wagging I don't like that I don't I don't I didn't want to make anything prescriptive you know it's like this is just descriptive subjectively like the only thing I know about the current moment is how I feel within it and house we her and I feel and we're just gonna kind of describe our feelings and maybe give raw material for a conversation to be had after the movie scene but not for the movie to have the conversation I don't know just like when when I don't know when pieces of median things about the internet get really instructive or what like pedagogical or ever I just like get sick to my stomach I just can't I'm like what are you know like what are we talking about like it just so like the cultures on fire everything's upside down we have no idea what's going on right obviously the same people that were proven so wrong 18 months ago or 20 years ago wherever that thing happened that we all know happened and now they're all speaking with certainty you know I don't know yeah I'm in the Internet as much as anybody and I don't I I can't begin to describe it in that way is that that's why maybe one of the biggest gaps is that sense of having any kind of authority on the thing that we're all still experiencing in real time yeah yeah in the movie the cheese scrolling through Instagram and I love it because it's not some dumb like shooting across the screen and like whizzing and there's like there's like a bird there's just so much bad internet in movies yeah yeah but that was seems like it must have been intentional it feels like it's done with some care yeah for sure yeah yeah I don't like when like the little tweet pops up on the screen or you know when they superimpose texts on I think it's like optics like why is the movie is now a computer I don't get but people are very it felt like film is sort of like a little bit phobic of screens and technology and I don't get it like Barry Lyndon writing a letter by candlelight is the most cinematic thing in the world but like a young girl on her phone in the dark which is literally like the candle and the letter are fused and it's one thing like that's super cinematic and beautiful and so yeah we wanted to capture them practically so all the screens are practical no screen replacements also it's the real Internet the real sites I knew if she logged on to friend book comm we were dead totally like dead that stuff shows up movies you're like it's over like this is that this is not alive anymore but that means like you know our production designer was making 200 fake Instagram account so we were fake messaging her in and figuring out the timestamps and how to sync all that stuff it was it was an absolute nightmare but but I thought but playing over it like Orinoco flow which is like a one of those beautiful songs ever like I just think any Anu what the internet sounded like like 30 and you tend to see the internet like scored with like hacker music that's like the Internet's deep that was a Seinfeld theme but but the Internet to me is spiritual and meaningful and so I wanted something that endowed it with like a sense of like it's a religious experience not like it's like Tron or The Matrix you were just like the only way we sort of felt it before yeah and Enya does that and ENIAC yeah it's like harps that sound like a like like that sound like sense it's crazy she's a she's a genius and I we had to write a letter to her and I didn't know how to get I'm like how do you get a letter to any I was like like do I write a letter like attach it to a salmon and like how does contact with India talk about LC who played kala or this game both him are great and I'd like to me it's like just the foggy the foggy goggles mean a lot to me yeah because there everyone always defog them in movies but the fog that's the that's that's the whole meaning of the movie like the fog it's pair of those goggles that's about as meaningful as anything yeah LC Fisher plays kala like you know we saw hundreds of kids and the movie was truly meaningless until she started reading it because it's about a shy girl a girl who's voted most quiet in her class which was a superlative I really had growing up which was a moment most shocked it's so cruel I know and people that what people don't realize that like shy people do not self-identify as shy truly and that shy what she understood which none of the young actors understood because of course young actors he think you have to be exuberant and when they would go in to play the part every other actor they would play it felt like a confident kid pretending to be shy and when she would play it it felt like a shy kid pretending to be confident which is what the role is shyness isn't cowering in a corner and not wanting to speak shyness is wanting to speak at every moment and not being able to that's what anxiety is it's not it she made it active I don't see Elsie playing Kayla I when I watch it I see Kayla playing all the people she wants to be in every moment to whatever navigate whatever situation she's in so she's just incredible and like just amazing and you know the plot of the movie for me happens behind her eyes in between her ears and that's provided fully by her Gabe who's Jake whose real name is Jake Ryan for any older people that's the name of the character in sixteen Candles and like his real name is Jake Ryan he's incredible and he came in and we did a test with him and Elsie a little chemistry test or like an anti chemistry test whatever we were looking for and there was a scene where it was I had them improvise and just just for the audition and he was like he goes do you like tacos and she goes I like tacos and he goes hardshell or soft and I went you have the part like you got a dude like and I was like just don't talk to each other like we did a lot of rehearsals with her and Josh because that's the only sort of dynamic that's familiar to her you know that like her father is the only dynamic that she's been through but everyone else we tried to keep separate so that we could kind of capture the sort of excitement of them meeting on the day when I would rehearse all the scenes with me and her and I rehearse with the other kids me playing Elsie and them playing Oh kids and then like at the very last minute I just pull myself out you know and then you'd get something which was rehearsed because I knew I knew what the consistency was but it but it was new and did you you did you limit how how frequently you gave out script so everything was kind of fresh umbly Elsie read it once fully once I actually got the role and like read it with her and her father so like you're very clear about the content of this you're comfortable with that yeah and then yeah only got the we did rehearsals but only got the pages on the day every morning would get the pages she is a freaky photographic memory she can read something once and just get it but I just didn't wanted to sit around like over baking it or cooking it in her head and that was the best advice I got as a director was being told like don't direct this thing a hundred times in your head don't show up with like some precious idea of what this movie is or you're gonna miss what's actually presenting itself to you in the moment which was she such such good advice yeah and so you had to you are reacting to her on some level what did she teach you about the character change how you thought about the movie as a whole I mean everything it's like everything and she just authors every moment I mean she's not even though she's not improvising like I don't know I guess I guess my fears were just washed away that that oh was this girl gonna feel inactive or blank or passive and she didn't she just imbued her with sort of everything that was needed so I don't know it just felt very right and intuitive and you know people think people watch the movie and because she's so natural in it they think I made like homeward bound is a dog movie they think it's like you mean they think it was like just do you and then I'll make a movie around you and they have no idea that the movies even going on it was not the case not the case she say she's like generales or something she's just like a incredibly talented technical actor some of the extras were like homeward bound I mean some of them they were sort of just like but that was that would just be like wild and not even know what's happening that's great and how did you avoid like you know I like a pool party see and I've heard you talk about a little bit but you know we see a pool party soon as I go I know what this is gonna be and it feels instead as if she is entering it with this she doesn't have she's 27 thinking about what a pool party was mine sent she is exploring what it might be like to be in a bathing suit when she is in eighth grade which is horrible well yeah yeah yes and and now I mean now it orrible like I don't want to go to a pool party now it's an oxymoron to me that bad term yeah part of it was like trying to see this just try to be cut again because it was a girl and because it set now I just had to walk it with her for the first time I wanted to walk her experiences with her as she did not because when you remember these things like you remember them as cultural moments and cultural like touchstone so it's like oh yeah pool party of course of course pool parties it's like no no try to clear your head of that and actually see it as she sees it which is how it is which is like okay it's like all these people I know where our bodies are exploding we're half dressed there's a hole in the ground filled with water it's like how is this happening you mean there was this legal really like it you know in that that's how we try to see every situation as surreal and visceral as it presents itself it's in the other side of it is a weird weird thing which is like for all post John Hughes generations myself included it's like a really weird thing of growing up for me is like by the time I got to this sort of like big moments and in milestones of my childhood I had seen them represented so much in movies and television that whenever I'm in them I'm like floating above myself judging myself going like like I had seen a first kiss on so many times by the time I got to my first kiss I was like here it is I've seen in movies a lot of times and I get to prom going like this is prom like what's what's the moment gonna happen when the thing happen you know how prom you know prom gets disrupted by that big climactic thing that always happens it's not the dance number is it yeah first like big kid like you know grunt grabbing a banner and saying he loves a girl or something whatever like it's weddings have a similar feeling as that too which is you get to a wedding and you're like oh this wedding is imitating weddings that's seen in movies this is all weird with it at one point movies were trying to represent reality and that reality is representing is trying to imitate movies representation of reality I have no idea where I'm going with this but it's interesting what you're saying I know people feel this way I know people feel this way I'm gonna ask you one more question we're gonna open up audience questions if you guys want to think of something good what do you is that part of what you hope that you know maybe younger viewers take from this is like detaching from performing for the expectation I mean beside yeah beside legislation outline pool parties yeah no I don't want them take away anything I mean I just want them to feel hopefully like it's honest and maybe it feels like them I don't necessarily think like performance is bad I don't think her videos are a lie I think trying to speak your truth into existence is beautiful I think trying to live out loud before you live in the real world might be the productive way to go about it and who you wish to be there's actually probably a more beautiful and vulnerable truth than who you fear you might be I think people are way quicker nowadays to admit their fears and their hopes so I think that's beautiful but I just hope it I hope they maybe feel recognized that that's all I'm not trying to like I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong I have no idea how to navigate the current moment and there's a lot to disassociate from right now it makes a lot of sense and I look at kids in their phone and my first instinct is and why is why are they on their phone it's like yeah why would you want to look up at the world right now yeah really for real like of course look at the world you made for these kids to look up at no wonder they're burying their head in the sand I'm not very light now I think that we just are gonna have people raise their hand it's just like a wild less the girl in the Hat yeah stand up and I'll repeat it but we can't hear you appreciate it yeah you know what I was I was I had like a little my comedy was starting at that time you know when when I was a senior in high school there was a there was a most likely to be famous most likely to make a million dollars most likely to be successful I got most likely to be on a reality show I didn't get I didn't get most funny or anything like I got a big can we swear yeah I got a big you from my class - that is awful that is Rick that is awful that sexist - you're gonna name a best-selling memoir that one day bail I'm gonna god today that debate did they name a guy to live with most cats oh of course they didn't have a guy equivalent yeah of course yeah it's unbelievable yes that is awful that's really bad and like you know what's any what's bad I'm sorry to keep cutting you off what's what's really bad is that it's it's like funny you know what that that's actually what's being used against you in that moment like take the joke it's funny right no but it's completely obliterating yeah yeah yeah yeah best-dressed it's like richest [Applause] yeah yeah exactly they were right there right yes yes yes oh I appreciate a question that's uh that really sucks about the most the 20 cats that you know really does know really does and like the laughter is the problem like that really sucks I'm sorry about that what oh yeah of course I mean yeah it's not gonna help but it's not just me I'm not I don't help as much do you think I do you know what isn't in your head I mean that's not for my question of people you know I mean like in your head is a dismissive thing is hilarious because you know nothing is significant Lee experience if it doesn't register in your head if it never makes in your head it's actually irrelevant and I'm saying of course there are real-world problems but of course the way they actually affect in the way they register to someone subjectively is in our head the universe is in our head so I don't quite understand that criticism you know I didn't speak it out loud to us 23 24 yeah I mean I didn't say the word to myself this movie was more me admitting it to myself than anybody like I was afraid to I thought if I said it out loud I would make it real and it was the exact opposite so like you're ahead of me being where you are at your age even admitting it to yourself and everything out loud everyone's got their own stuff going on you know and so I saw you know IIIi don't I don't know how to deal with it other than to speak it and keep speaking it and don't try to rid the personal shame of having it a couple ways you kind of encountered it maybe even yep if you want to talk about on stage how did you first deal with having anxiety about performing yeah performing I yeah you can sit if you want to say you don't have to if you feel like standing good yeah and no I mean a panic attacks on stage in front of 3,000 people you know multiple panic attacks on stage in from within a show I had written you know I mean it's just insane so but anxiety is surreal in any situation you know it just it it makes any such situation to feel that surreal I don't know I don't know how to deal with a promise you know I go to therapy or talk about it I don't do that but I should and you know I don't know I'm sorry I'd like a lot of what I'm doing is actually just trying to shrug and see see recognition in other people and get recognition other people so we're actually doing the same thing and you are providing for me as much as I'm providing for you truly so thank you good luck to us I think we're gonna do another question now the girl with the long blonde hair over here yeah yeah appreciate do you direct have you directed things you are a director no it's okay no but that is perfect that's perfect you are a director you are an actor you're not aspiring you know really isn't you maybe aspire to be a famous one or a successful one don't have shame about that stuff it's it's really if you were really really happy about the stuff you are making right at the gate you'd be screwed you'd be a psychopath really no no really like that that shame or or not being worthy you feel about your own material is the creative process is you getting better I feel that every step of the process the entire time so the great thing about the creative process I know this isn't the answer it isn't a question you asked is everyone has access to it right away the best part it just is true it took me a long time to realize like the thing I loved most about doing this is the thing I had access to in sixth grade doing theater the other stuff's great the other stuff super fund er to pursue I have gotten very lucky I'm very grateful to be here but like this is at the mercy of everybody else so I would really say like and this is and I wish I could have told myself this when I was younger don't wait to be some version of what you think is good until you get to be it and enjoy it you can enjoy it right now you can actually be it right now you can aspire to be seen by more people and be successful but don't aspire to be a director an actor you're directing you you you act right you're it you just are doing it so and the and uh yeah that's and then I struggle getting the money that's a bad answer the first answer is cooler um yeah I you know three years I struggled a lot to get the money for this I wrote it like three years ago and then sort of when I made my last special make happy on Netflix I felt like okay but enough sort of momentum right now where I can get the money to make this because I like I had kind of sold like the budgets amount of tickets on the road so I was like I think I can finally do this but yeah good luck with it I want to ask you about something want to take a pee actually a bike if you have a line in there that is if you can live without an audience you should do it well you know it's sort of corny I mean up there and I'm also like being you know theatrical and fun and you know performing honesty as much as doing honesty but that's sort of the realization I had very late in my creative life which was like the moment for me which meant I just so so violently tried to not say aha moment cuz I hate when people what's like you know I was trying to express what I was going through I was trying to be honest onstage which for me being honest on stage couldn't be like man I my laundry it was like no honesty for me is like I'm struggling with being on stage in front of all these people staring at me it's super weird and it makes me feel super anxious so I would talk about it I was like well this is gonna be awful because no one's gonna get this unless they're a 24 year old male comedian with an audience and I would do the show and 14 old girls would come up to me and say I feel exactly like you do and I go what you mean I really wouldn't understand it and it ties back to this movie of if there was a bridge I had to walk to write the movie it was built by them to me first I felt understood personally by people like Kayla before I presume to understand someone like Kayla and it was the thing that oh this very specific circumstance of my life which is the specific stresses of being a d-list celebrity has now been democratized and given to everybody everybody is a brand everybody is their own publicist everybody is worrying about their legacy everyone's being their own biographer it's horrifying and and but he was the two sides of a coin that one obliterated me one was my deepest fear and one actually saved my life which was I am not unique and I'm not alone you know I was worried of course what I'm feeling is cuz I'm so I'm so deep I'm so smart I'm in such a specific no really I mean this is like the actual honest thing that's embarrassing to admit I'm AM anxious because I'm just living the coolest life and I'm just so in my head and I'm Ernest Ernest Hemingway or something but no it's not true I'm kind of my stresses are very very common and shared by sort of everybody and it led to this movie which is that you know what if I'm being honest with me my experience in total is e is equal to or less than that of a regular thirteen-year-old girl and I believe that I believe that I do believe that now and that that that helps that so so that's back to your question of like Ang's the problem with anxiety and I it can bleed into other sort of mental problems as well is that like it dispositional E with people it tends to select people that are very want to be a little closed off in singular and and the feeling of anxiety itself I've described it as like it's like riding a bull and the bull is your nervous system and you're just trying to hold on and being in the world it everyone else is an equestrian to you and you're the only one that has to struggle with this thing and it just isn't true and you and I think the part some anxious people myself included don't want to believe is you don't actually want to believe that your experience is shared you actually want to be alone because it means you're special and you have to let that go because that is dark dark dark dark you enter I love it you guys are pastoring the other question in full that's perfect okay we have another one in the front here hi oh yeah you it's very creative actually I do truly yeah well you get you're gonna have to get creative to deal with what's going on now no no no it's a great way to be all agree they're just nervous it's yeah yeah yeah that's all yes yeah I mean the truth is like the person to give this answer is really not me like no no truly truly truly because like the conversation that's happening right now that I do agree with is that there is at once a shared experience and also a specific experience that people with my specific experience demographically tend to speak with a lot of authority in the moment and maybe they shouldn't so often but here I am in the lights I do believe that the most significant things or some some of the most significant things are shared love grief family pain I what I don't want to do is I and again this is what I don't want I'm like please see this as like open I'm not really addressing necessarily just you but anyone that could interpret an answer as wrong it's also it's it's crazy the amount of subordinate phrases you need to put before a statement nowadays might be right that might be right because the cultures on fire I get it I really do get it I'm saying like the worst thing happened in the world 18 months ago that set the country on fire so I get that we went like we need to like tear our culture down and look at every piece of it and go how the did it add up to this so I I do really get it and like the friendly fire is not at all equivalent to the war that was started at all at all like we're gonna actually say that like that that I should be saying and stuff but like that psycho is equivalent to like some clunky college students that are like saying their opinion little too loudly like those are equivalent things is absolutely bonkers but I will say that like what I what I don't want what I like what I seek out in art I'm just gonna keep it to art for me for my sake I personally connect so much with pieces of art and things that I don't demographically aligned with that is a really powerful experience for me and like a huge engine for empathy and change and it's beautiful to see myself in someone that on the surface is nothing like me which is some like something like this story you know and I and I don't want that to go I don't want the belief to be that we can never understand each other we just you know I know there of course are certain certain circumstances and life experiences that cannot be understood and we need to listen to each other and specific groups need to step back and listen to other groups but of course there's a shared humanity that we can all talk about right right like I'm saying you know I mean like we all have parents that are like dying we all we're all trying to love each other we're all like hearts in chests and brains and heads so that is I I don't I don't know though it's it's it's crazy it's crazy times but I get it I get why it's crazy when the happened November 2016 I was like it's over it's over and what you might be seeing is like it's it's over but you know we have to tear down everything we have to like I was already thinking like okay all the shows are canceled like there's no way I'm gonna see another talk-show again in my life let alone I saw twice as many you know so like there's way less culture tearing down than I expected and I then I expected I think people are being very well behaved is actually happening and I think in your question there is there something about decency where people are being held accountable to certain standards of decency when they subscribe to them and just the fact that he's still president is proof of that right so right now we're getting caught in people just gonna hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite you know me that's what's happening right now is that like we forgot where the state everyone's just calling each other hypocrites which is correct well like it's it's oh it's Donald Trump are we forgetting that like I'll never get over that I'll never get over that it's Donald Trump I'm like even the people like yeah I get it like yeah and like snowflakes and you don't like her and Hillary it's Donald Trump like you're on you're on board with Donald Trump like I know no I'll take those arguments okay yeah maybe that should be less its Donald Donald Trump it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy it's crazy and I blame comedy for 80% of it I do swear to God I swear to God he learned everything he needed to learn at the Comedy Central Roast learned it's not a joke learned everything everything it's funny at a personal level I won comedic Lee the way we can subvert some of that trolling and lack of decency right is better remembering how to be humans when wearing using the internet and I'm I guess we probably have time for one last question after this but could you be a human on the Internet you're not gonna out tweet Donald you're not it doesn't it's his medium what are you talking about wearing a national conversation my throne fortune cookies at each other the antidote for him isn't better tweets its long-form conversation right I mean it's his medium what do you you talking about of course this stuff is reductive it's literally reductive it's 160 characters but if me of course like they're there to bullying this it's the mediums it's the mediums that's the problem it's probably not the people you mean that that's the problem it's people thinking it's people versus people and it's mediums it's people slight literally sliding fortune cookies to each other trying to have an argument about complex giant things no wonder it's uncivil and we're gonna turn the tweets up let's tweet them out of are you crazy right as if y'all look crazy I don't know should it be regulated this should not be streamed on live of course to be regulated they should be it should be there is no proof that we should be actual izing this stuff you go to takes 30 minutes takes you know 30 minutes to get to work on a horse and carriage then we make a car it takes 15 minutes great make a faster car great cleaner energy make it quicker why should we apply that to our social lives why should we apply that to our conversation is there any proof that streamlining this stuff makes it better you can talk to a hundred people now you can talk to a thousand you can have a conversation there's no we're applying a like capitalist whatever like streamlining logic to literally our emotions and our souls and that just happened that's it that's a shift from like the internet was the super the internet superhighway where it's like libraries are everywhere and now it's literally our well-being being churned out and our attention is being colonized until there will be none left crazy crazy crazy very busy let's do one more question yeah impossible let's do one we are I'm pretty sure we're gonna get kicked off stage oh good question I I mean I wrote it too directed there's a great question Julia de corna who directed raw that would be that would be I saw brought three times in theaters that would have been her yeah it was a quick answer Wow would I like a photo I mean it'd be very okay the only thing weirder than asking it would be saying no so you know we went from heavy to light very quickly so good okay what great I think that's the shop face of meeting everybody [Applause]

Channel: 92nd Street Y

Views: 162,654

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, bo burnham, lauren duca, teen vogue, eighth grade, elsie fisher, drama, web series, youtube star, teen movie

Id: osvjZOlTOGI

Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/kvmalhotra]

41:00 - 50:00 is woke as shit