In Conversation: Bo Burnham Live on "Good One"

[Music] well welcome to poultry festival you're now at a podcast it's called good one bo burnham is here if you're wondering he appreciates that thank you so what's about to happen is we're gonna play first the trailer for Bo's upcoming movie eighth grade followed by have you guys seen his last special make happy great someone I have to provide that much contact but Bo asked me to provide a little bit so we're gonna play the sort of finale the Kanye rant so some context he just sort of right before this moment he gives a sort of a joke list speech about performance and how in the modern day with social media we all performing and as you'll see this song is about the nature of being a performer in this context and the rest he'll explain during it so what will happen is we'll play the trailer then the clip then I will come back then I'll be like bow and then he'll come back and we're gonna talk about the things you just saw and that will be it and tell you guys all for being here enjoy [Applause] yeah [Applause] I'm sweating from one from just hearing that great thank you guys thank you about I think a good place to start with this joke is a three years before at the end of the what tour hmm how are you feeling about stand-up what we were thinking in terms of a new show yeah I just want to quickly say the elephant in the room being there has been some recent Kanye news that this is like this was this was written about 2015's Kanye and I don't think two white guys should be riffing about what just happened so like let's avoid that but anyway yeah I mean I yeah I was doing stand-up for a while and liked it and it always been a nervous sort of person and had the first panic attack of my life doing my last show on stage in front of 800 people in Edinburgh you know just tunnel vision I didn't know what was happening and that started to sort of happen more incrementally and felt like it was gonna I felt like I couldn't do stand-up anymore and the the finale to my last show what was sort of like this but it was pretending like the problem I had was other people's perception of me sure when the problem really was more personal than that so this was a way of vaguely doing that of saying like I felt like I wasn't the one thing I wasn't being honest about on stage is that I was absolutely terrified of it yeah and that's what this is vaguely attempting to do is just to articulate that yeah did you start was was there a time between the panic attacks and then start watching this show I mean like how did you then be like I got a like did you have a light bulb of like I'm having these panic attacks maybe I should write about this maybe I should go to therapy yeah I mean that's like that's like truly what I should have done I don't know I mean you know I started writing and I went on the road I mean I've had you know 12 panic attacks my entire life 11 of which have happened on stage and one of which has happened one of which happened on the Amtrak to DC between shows that I was having panic attacks that and you know panic attacks are not chill at all like truly no really unchill and panic attacks in front of 3,000 people are terrifying yeah so it was the thing you know I it was it was my enemy up there what was the fear of my own anxiety of my own panic and I could pretend like oh the thing about in the thing was the thing I hate about comedy is a culture so [ __ ] yeah their culture so [ __ ] and everything's crap and comedy sucks and I'm the cool kid I mean and it wasn't the truth was I was terrifying so in a way if you know and it's a lesson I've learned which is that the only way to fight or or solve these things is to express them so could I express my own panic in it and I look at what's weird as III haven't seen that in two years yeah and I was watching it and I can't see the panic it's so weird I watch and I don't believe that that person is nervous I was [ __ ] my pants that day truly there were two shows you know like the really terrible thing about recording especially know it's three years of work and then it is one night one night to record three years so it's not like an album or like the entire work that you've been working on for three years you better nail it on Friday November 13th or it's dead yeah and I did two shows that night and I never did two shows in the night because my voice couldn't take it and you know was up the night before sick to my stomach got cut through that first show and went backstage and completely broke down and then then could attack the second show a little bit of calmness and most of what that is is it's most of the entire show is actually from the second taping did you when you start to work on a show deuce did you have the whole concept and then you start writing songs or just sort of develop as you write songs yeah no it's yeah it comes together bit by bit I think separate bits come together and then and the whole thing with this show which my other shows had tried to do you know I took theater my whole life and that's what I was interested in I wasn't interested in standup III don't find I don't feel at home in the world of stand-up I like the people in it but like when I go to a comedy club I'd be like what is like this place is not for me like yeah like brick walls and to drink minimums and like but really like this is not what I feel at home so it was always sort of trying to wrestle the things I loved about theater into stand-up which was you know staging and lighting and things like that and with my previous shows it was sort of I would just I didn't have enough money or whatever to I would just go to a venue and okay have an idea that I want to black out in a spot like here so I have to sort of wrestle wrestle the show technically every night given what was in the space we were but my my shows that picked up enough speed where would this last hour I was able to play in theaters play in you know a 1500 mm see theaters so the idea was I want to write a show that is meant to be in a theatre because you see stand-up in three thousand seat theatres you see them in arenas and it's the exact same thing that we've done in a comedy club which I've just blown up and you know it's like you go to arena shows and you're like just watching a guy talk and you're just watching the television it just feels it's cool that's what they do or watching the girl talk whatever but it's I wanted to build a show and write the show for the space of a theatre show that couldn't be done in the smaller space so that that was part of it is like the writing the bits with the lighting in mind that this this bit will not make sense unless yeah which is probably why there's no album is there's no album I think of this yeah yeah that's part of it yeah but it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense without the visual so it's so it and what point are you seeing Kanye as you can tell I don't do comedy anymore that's how deadly serious boring all is it only gonna get more serious buckling everybody yeah so I'm up winner you are you seeing Kanye and you know what is the when you're seeing him do that the rant that's yeah it's honor you're like I'm I gotta leave now and like start yeah again so like you know what Kanye is doing his stuff right now it's wild you know whatever is happening but I have always been a fan of him deeply conceptually I think he is an incredible approach to the theatricality of live performance and arena performance he tackles arena performance in a way no one else does he it's a really really economic use of lighting monochromatic lighting just precisely it's all just really really incredible yeah I you know st. Pablo toward this last one I directed Chris Rock's last special ripped off that was really is it just ripping off the st. Pablo monochromatic sort of incandescent light for that but yeah so I see I saw the yeezus tour which is incredible incredible live show where he comes out in a jeweled mask and performs the entire first hour and a half of the concert without you letting him see his face which is just so smart and incredible and then and brave and bold but he would do this thing every night where he would stop for 15 minutes and auto-tuned rant about like adidas and geopolitics it was like very a window and there was one and you can see them all online there was an amazing when he at the United Center in Chicago or he was talking about the fact that they didn't let Michael Jordan by the Bulls and the chorus that he kept doing was we should have never ever let MJ played for the Wizards Michael Jordan who played for the Wizards but I watched that thinking like you know what even even if the this sort of scope and paradigm of a value system he's talking and doesn't match up to me he's speaking his truth you know so I thought well what if I spoke my truth and in the initial instinct is okay well my truth is burritos and Pringles and something you know they'd be yeah but then it's it's sort of a it was a thing in in sort of the idea of a lot of my stuff which is can you satirize the thing and give you the true heart of the thing is yeah you only mean like I'm making fun of what he's doing by going I as burritos and what what if this big thing was expressed with these banal pedantic sort of grievances yeah but then the second half turns into but actually what am I worried about and what am I scared of and that's in a lot of the things she means like I make a country song it's making fun of country songs but it also hopefully gives you like the the amazing feeling that those transcendent countries are you like you're using the vocabulary of it to also then do the thing that you it can do exactly and just even the whole form of the show is like this show is gonna make fun of what what a spectacle is and also give you all of the moments that a spectacle gives you that make spectacles so fun geez for something like this are you writing the lyrics first you're doing the music first um yeah I mean it just it's basically a ripoff on the runaway chords that yeah totally rip off then yeah it's like me and my like garage like with the stupid auto-tune thing like being annoying I mean I don't know and just yeah I don't remember it's two years ago I don't remember so specifically the the Pringles and the Chipotle part you mentioned that like the the the it establishes like what is the comedy of it like oh we're doing the ops like my problems are less is that why specifically were those the two things that hey just a joke I mean I read people were like oh man the burrito looks like all of his feelings he can't keep us in Psych now that's like it's like sure yeah I read those before I was like all I got to ask him about these metaphors yeah it's very important maybe I mean maybe it's subconscious or something I know I can give myself that much credit I mean it was like it's it's just you know I wish I had picked something I don't actually do because sometimes I'll go to like Chipotle and the guy will be like like no thanks and actually get bowls I usually don't give the burrito but yeah I don't know I mean I got big hands ya know I don't know why it's Pringles or burritos I mean there's a sort of Solyndra consistency what when you were writing it real like oh this will be at the end like are you yes like was theirs like oh there's a hole in this show and this song will fill it I called my stage manager like halfway through filling with and instead like I or my tour manager instead like I this is I think I have the finale I think I'm writing something that there's no way I can do something after it oh I tapped my mic comedic Lee for those listening yeah I yes I felt like this is the old this is the this is how to end it and I look back and I'm like oh I'm pretty sure with that yeah I mean I look back my old stuff I don't like it but that I'm like that was it I did what I was trying to do and a lot of others yeah yes I mean it's just like yeah it's like a way way way better version of the finale to in my previous show yeah because you are doing everything a full show at a time do things do things change like yeah yeah like I admit um I know that it's least live yet you sit before you started the breakdown you said put the lotion in the basket that's what it said online that I'm like a live version oh yeah yeah yeah things changed yeah yeah well the whole thing was I kind of kind of back up a little bit like to go like the whole point was most people by the time they get to theaters they're not working it out anymore yeah and or they kind of are but they're working it out in the clubs they presented in theaters the whole point was like we're going to work on this show we're gonna work on the technical aspects of the show and the jokes all at the same time we're gonna test this show on the road as a technical thing in 1500 see theaters some of the time because a lot of times like you get to a taping of a special and it's all this production put on to a hour of comedy that's never had it been like that good I mean it's purple lights and all this stupid [ __ ] and it's like it makes no sense you know like our show like exactly how the show looked on the road exactly there was no extra lights on that we we we did he we brought in those a Joe Werner my sound guy Chris Galante who did the lighting design we spent two weeks in a little like garage with the full lighting setup stage all you know taped out you know in that that was late 2014 thought of the lighting fixtures okay we're gonna three pairs of those who tiered trusts because that can give us a just a very versatile sort of lighting setup and but every night before the show after the show we would sit down and go okay that luck that didn't totally work and that that we would change lighting cues the lighting cue would get a lap we would we would you know test the lighting hue like a joke so that by the end it really was the four of us who knew the show back and forth and we're performing at every and you're thinking even when you're like you're also thinking for how it looked filmed even when you're yes yeah yeah bless you like yeah yeah the other thing was to try to make a stand-up special that was that we you kind of introduced some I'm all over the place with this sorry you introduced some film language and you actually do it like a movie and not just like a taped performance there is a minute and a half and of that last bit this film without an audience there oh really yeah yeah like the big zoom in on the big sort of push crane push when all the lights come down and I go down there's no you know there's no audience there wait so then how are you what does that mean I mean so you've audio is flown in live because I'm like this you can't really tell the audio some of the extreme close-ups when I'm when I'm in the sort of serious part crouched down that's film without an audience we did their pickups all over the show so I was gonna ask me later but it was the thing that I think I noticed I also heard about Jerrod special or Jerrod special was not filmed in concern of what the audience at that time thought about it yeah definitely particularly would I just remember hearing bad things about no offense but like that that those are they're awkward tapings and then I saw the specials like is Incredibles again he didn't here yeah yeah we don't yeah it mean you are playing for the viewers at home I mean you tell that like saying with you know we did we I just did Chris Rock special and a big part of that special is basically getting heater on him you know and just telling him like Justin you know this is who you're performing for yeah like I know your instinct in a large theater is to perform for the back row you know but but the the scale of performance for film and and live is is totally totally different so did you with that part the only part you did like did you just sort of redo the entire act effort no no there's the country song there's a dolly thing that goes on the front of the stage if you pay attention you'll realize a little the camera can't be there yeah so that was picked up so I was telling you before I've talked to comedians about this joke even before I knew I was interviewing you it just sort of has come up because it and I was talking to one community who sort of like it changed its complete relationship to comedy so specifically the part I know and the part research specifically the line we say to give you what you cannot give himself he said it helped him realize that like especially with honest Fiat like the confessional comedy you're essentially like giving the audience your life so you don't actually have to live it you don't have to sort of grow it sort of it's for their disposal you don't have to do it did you feel that to do sort of like what was the feeling when you wrote specifically that part dudes a dork no I mean I don't know I mean it's like the the part of it's like yeah it's true you know I mean yeah I'm nervous but like I approached the emotionality of the special in the same way I approached the comedy theatrical being I mean I was doing like stupid little pretentious Greek planes and high school rose like mother you know II mean so it's like I don't know it's it's a weird thing you mean like I would throw myself into the comedy and people like hahaha and then for 58 minutes I'm being funny and then for two minutes I throw myself into my sadness everyone's like he's going to kill himself no but legitimately and I wouldn't explain to people like yeah it's part of me it's part of everything what was the question again what did you say that line the idea of I'll ask this I'll give you but I can't yet myself it's kind of just well phrased I'm saying it's got a little doot-doot doot-doot a lot of it has to do with just like does that the lyrics and it's also like I like kind of like to lean into the emo thing you know I'm just thing I like to a comedy it's very agro and masculine so I like to get up there and like cry but ii know but yeah I mean yeah it's weird to be having a panic attack on stage and they don't they don't know it's no never knew I was having a panic attack yeah and it would last 30 minutes problem so you're just doing the show and but in your head you're like what more than that it's like I'm not catching my breath for 20 minutes every line is barely coming out of my breath my vision is tunneled and I'm killing the I'm killing in a 2500 seat theater you mean yeah they're laughing and that's a weird [ __ ] feeling it really is that you don't even have to be there and they are like you don't have to be President and they're still responding to them yeah or just like wow these are - it's so strong I mean it's like a chef that's starving as he is like well it's varying it's like - it's like - ironic in eeeh but the whole thing was like you mean just it was more like can i express this thing and do the thing that is the answer to this thing and also the thing that caused the thing which is like you know I mean like I'm gonna I'm gonna show you how I'm gonna strip it all the way at the same time that I'm yeah making it wait so much bigger you're saying that Penn & Teller was like a big influence in that day yeah like a say you'll say this is the trick we're gonna do and then they said well the pentose great yet exactly what Penn & Teller does is they go magics [ __ ] right it's so [ __ ] stupid you do this and then wall then at the end you can't believe the trick they did and that's sort of the point isn't performance and comedy so [ __ ] supid while you laugh and they hopefully hold your heart or whatever so the second thing that comedians are really taken by is a to tell an audience that they are the audience and that they are a problem yeah and then especially how you shoot that moment where you go that problem and you like shoot them at this like a black mass yeah that's great yeah can you tell me about conceiving all of that part I love that part yeah I do I think it looks really and that's like you know Android are our cinematographer and Chris and and and oh my god what's it what's his name mark I'm so sorry cut this part I hate the way audiences are lit in Santa specials I mean it looks like it looks like Conan live from the Chicago Theatre which is totally but I'm saying Conan no no that's not insulted Conan like Conan's live shows are not meant to look like gritty live shows yeah you know it looks like the Oscars or the Golden Globes where it's all lit and interesting you know and comedy specials are often you know the audience is totally lit we're showing people laughing and clapping as if we need to signal the people at home that's why they like it's absolutely stupid but also like my whole thing was and it has to do with the theme of the show is that like a beautiful thing that I felt I stumbled into was I'm gonna talk about myself as performer and feeling lonely and isolated as a performer and I felt people the audience understood it because they related to me me the performer so when I'm presenting the audience to the home viewer I'm not presenting the audience to the home viewer as this is you know this is your audience this is I want you to feel like me and what they look like to me you guys look nice and but truly like in a 3,000 seat theater they are a shapeless like dark mass of people it's really abstract and strange and weird so I wanted to present the audience to the viewer at home like like it was me and I knew that this special event that that's the really weird thing about a Santa special is that a tape stand a special is that it's you performing to ten thousand or whatever you before need to 2,000 people being taped and then viewed by one person you mean so that that that was the thing is that you're watching a show that was built to be viewed live by 1500 people and taped to be viewed by one person yeah so again like this is the bit at the end that has resonated for people I think in a certain way but really didn't resonate that much for people in the live show yeah well it resonated comedic ly and and and pyro technically or whatever but the end never really made sense because I think it was always meant to be viewed here yeah that means that got to passionate so I I wanted to ask you specifically about the I can't handle this part sort of two questions one is what is this what is the this and I can handle this but also you know when you're performing it every night and you're screaming yes what are you and are you honest in that moment do you feel like or do you feel like this is a performance like is that like truly like you're in that a little bit I mean by that point the show I'm usually cruising oh yeah so nervous but what's cool about it when I was watching it you know I think man all these compliment being cut just looks amazing no but what's cool is that this really is this yeah and then now really really is now really yeah really you know like it actually is literally this the exact thing I'm doing at that moment and that now is and I really can't you know it's it there's no it's very literal I cannot handle performing in front of you people it gives me panic attacks I want to stop and I did yeah like so I might not I'm saying I'm happy to go back and I might go bad like I'm better with it than I have been but you know that I think there's added meaning in it the fact that I haven't performed in two years since then you know like I wasn't kidding I wasn't you know I wasn't kidding that that was it was rough the way I mean me the way even you're talking about I was like I'll go but I mean it's like just I feel like how Steve Martin said like he quit and then realized he just he didn't like no II quit he just sort of was like not doing it ever again I mean but yeah the J Martin said he looked in the back of theaters though and saw empty seats and quit you know I was yeah it's not my reason like the show the show ends with you saying I hope you're happy how did that line reading change each night great question I yeah I mean that yeah exactly like that's the thing I don't think people really you know I don't know if like I hope you're having supposed to be like I hope you're happy yeah but some nights you're like mad at them some nights are like no it's all the truth is also I'm a like the performance is very very very technical and I and I wish I was a little more free up there it's very very similar night tonight but I think we ended up taking a take that it skews more to the genuine yeah like I hope you're happy you know like it's much it's the meaning to me is much more I hope you're [ __ ] happy like here it is whatever but again that's like I'm being dramatic I'm being over dramatic yeah you know and I'm connected with young people that are overdramatic people you mean so you know like I'm saying like you know I'd have like you know 15 year old girl cause me after a show be like it meant so much to me and it's like yeah cool you know for a long time I was told like you know you just seem like a comedian for thirteen year old girls and after a while I was like [ __ ] yeah I love it you know I think I am speaking of I'm beyond the all-time low of comedians how much of it is do you think it is that it's music musical music comedy because I feel like it's a comedy musical comedy musical comedy how much we think it all that a connection and sort of your ability to do this it's completely tied to the fact that you started it or you're brought to the fore as a musical comedian which is what which is the one that can actually do end this sort of line that you walk in the act yeah saying oh yeah I mean yeah a musical comedy what's nice or for me what would the strength for me is it like there is no illusion that this is being yeah you mean like you like when it's music like it's not like let me just you know like you can't casually perform a song when you see guys do it at parties with acoustic guitars it's anything but casual a truly high stakes and very awkward but like so yeah like the musicality was able to buttress and that's probably not correct the atra cavity and the arms are just like don't worry like this is really planned and fake and yeah and you are aware and there's no way that no one could not be aware of it because you you're not be like a so I was doing this the other day and you're like you'd be lying to be like it's the other day the song if you a little bit in this it's like I'm going like what I'm going like all these problems I have and I'm feeling you know like and I just wanna I'm actually going in my head like 1 2 like I'm him keeping the tempo in my head to make sure I hit that whatever so it's like it's all very very unnatural yeah so I was listening to an interview from around the time when this special is coming out and it felt like this was directly leading to you talking about like oh I'm gonna continue this sort of conversation but suddenly this movie about an eighth-grade girl like it was like part of one breath can you talk about how this joke in particular transitioned into eighth grade yeah I mean so I had felt like I had really exhausted myself as a subject like truly and the I mean I was like so tired of my head like just yeah I mean it's really like I didn't like expressing myself through myself anymore I just I had dot I knew like oh I do another stand-up show I'm just gonna try to do this again yeah I'm just gonna like I I have nothing more to say right now than what that show did and just because of my job you know the only way that I I was exploring this you know whatever trying to explore the current cultural moment or whatever from within as a performer and like a d-list celebrity which is like that's not it just so it becomes really satirical and ironic and yeah you know and I wanted to drop all of that and go like if I'm like the people I'm really interested about the real story of the Internet if that's what my show is about a little bit if my show is about or my stand-up was trying to describe the sort of meta anxiety you feel by being on the Internet in a place where you're sort of self is atomized into a you know a thousand different versions of you that are watching each other and taking inventory of each other what was much more interesting was to watch someone that was not being paid attention to that that doesn't go viral you know I wanted to hear ass that I wanted to make a movie about someone that doesn't go viral someone that's living with the Internet as a texture someone that's living with their anxiety untethered by you know they you know she it's in the movie it's like she has a panic attack in a bathroom before going out to a pool party and so it's not backstage and you know the deccan theater before but it's the same thing so that was that was the point to go like if I'm being really really honest about my feelings and and and my thoughts they're a little more vulnerable than I'm given I just want I just wanted to drop the irony drop the yeah and drop is satire drop the cynicism drop that oh man this ain't this is this moment so [ __ ] isn't it so fun I mean and go like no like really like I'm scared sad I have like my tummy hurts because of what what's going on really you only mean yeah because to satirize the internet is at the end of the day toothless you know who SATA rides the Internet Geico Old Spice really yeah I mean like what's that what's the game in town like there's a there's like a Donald Trump cartoon right now on Showtime it's like whatever really like you're making a cartoon of him like good luck yeah what kind of angle is that you know so I wanted to do something smaller more granular more emotional yeah what is it about sort of written what is it about a sort of a 13 year old girl is the best way to tell a story that it's tell your story I mean like through your Thai career what even you're doing stand-up it's you when Zack Stone is I think for you what is it about a sort of 13 old girls the best way to tell well it felt like eighth grade it had to be the 13-year old you know because it was like the internet kind of makes 13 year olds of us all you know we all act like I think 13 old and kids in really feel the internet in their bones you mean it's they don't even see it as this other thing that you know people on CNN will talk about when they talk about like our hashtags ruining our users like you don't even have a do you like your turn you don't even understand guys and in any sense so I watched hundreds of videos of kids talking about themselves online the boys talked about Minecraft the girls talked about their souls so it was like okay it's like kind of just gonna be a girl like the the movie about a boy would just be like 90 minutes of Fortnight references so but also to try to tell a story about there's two answers yeah try to tell a story about being young now that was not nostalgic was not a projection in my own experience so it being a girl forced me to not project my own experience on her and to the real truth is you know I would perform my show and I would meet kids after and you know young girls would come up to me and they understood what I was expressing in that bit and on stage way more than guys my own image way more yeah so if there was a bridge between us that I had to cross to write the movie it was built too by them truly yeah I felt understood by them before I presume to understand them I think it has something to do with a certain flavor of anxiety that's maybe more particular cultural II two young girls than his young boys or women in general I know the anxiety that I have is shared by my my mother and my sister and not really the man in my family one of the most sort of arresting the movies like funny - I mean I like sounds like so stressful but one of the most stressful parts of the movie one of the most is how you hold the camera on Kayla even when in moments where she doesn't want anyone to be looking at her can you talk about that decision cuz it is to see a person when they don't want to be seen is a powerful thing to do on camera right yet totally that's a great that's a great point it's sort of similar to the show in a way where it's like the medium itself is almost the enemy of the thing yeah oh you mean like the medium of performance was my enemy the medium of her is cameras in the captured medium and movies you know this girl so wants to almost like anxiety the movie you guys haven't seen it so might not make sense but like the anxiety the movie is almost I wish the movie of my life sucks if anyone were to be watching me right now they would think I was really lame yeah she wants to sound like all the kids yeah the young girls and movies that are perfectly articulate about their experience she wants to be able to she she wants to she would love to edit her way through her life you know I mean she would love the tools of moviemaking to get away from herself but she can't so that was part of the challenge of the the movie how do you make a movie about a generation that self documents that has such an intimate relationship with the viewed image and that I don't know there's the old thing that like when photos first showed up people thought it took a bit of your soul you know they wouldn't and I think it's true you know I think that's true if you guys probably feel that I'm saying a lot of you guys probably young people that are being creative and things and and like I'm very curious to see what people young people do and make because I think we have to wrestle with portraying this very meta strange layered thing that even knowing it the internet almost robs us of our ability to articulate it so I'm very curious to see what what people do and you see older people thinking and it's so on cinematic and it's someone portrayal but it means something to us I think like neurochemically so I don't know I'm you know I feel like the old old guy of the Internet truly yeah I'm like the like the elder of the generation of people that grew up with the Internet no really though like everyone a little older than me didn't really grow up with the Internet really and I mean the Internet it's in social media because the Internet is just like a big library social media is like it's got into your heart and every curious to see what kids do it's sort of the most in that way meta of is you have the vlogging scenes where you have a teenager who's the actress yeah performing as a teenager who's not comfortable performing but performing like she is yeah yeah right how do you how do you how was the nature of both writing those and sort of directing her you know what were the conversations like to sort of get what the tone was supposed to be yeah what's really interesting yeah and it's funny when like actual eighth grade you know what actual actual young people see the movie they just you know it's like they're like oh cringe yeah you're all like yeah you're really embarrassing you markridge yeah but yeah it was just letting her be yourself and letting all the kids giving them permission to be inarticulate because that is the experience of being young I didn't say a complete sentence until I was 20 truly you need the experience of being a kid it's like you just drank a glass of milk and now you're like okay sound like that was that was a huge part of the movie is that for the movie to be articulate at the level of a thirteen-year-old which everything is a thirteen-year-old is performance and I mean if you have a cat like just have any low level casual conversation with a 13 year old it gives immediately high stakes you mean it's just like every moment they're trying to navigate they're doing an impression of some moment they've seen someone else do you know and they they they act like their favorite celebrities or people or what it's um and I think we all still do in a way we just get a little better at smoothing the edges out yeah what did you learn about performance from working with LC the actors who played the lead role um I mean everything I mean she there's parts of the movie where she you know does in 20 seconds when I spend an hour trying to do you know better than than I did it just like a fearlessness and an openness and I am I stand up you know it was like all I always had to present things I had control over and things I had thought through and what she is able to do really well is present you with the real horizon of her thoughts you know this is this is the exact edge of what I'm thinking and to let people in on that I think that's much much more beautiful than to be instructive and to go like all right sit down I'm gonna tell you a little bit something rather than to go like you know like she said so much in her ability not to articulate and to be open to be able to do that reliably and technically what she was able to do yeah so you came up doing theater you did stand-up you made a TV show you know what is it about film and how audiences consume it as a sort of a good medium for you to explore the themes that he won't do like what is about film which until this you know I had not heard you necessarily talk about oh it won't be a filmmaker Sara Lee what is it that you found doing it that you're like there's something really comfortable with it um well just logistically it was like the thing I like to do is like work three years on an hour of something oh yeah so like a television show wasn't good for me I mean I'd like to do it like this show I made from TV was like super fun but like I liked you know I mean I I couldn't make eight hours of something right now you know I mean I just wanted I wanted to spend two years making 90 minutes of something so logistically I just meant like I could really what are the things that you can do that specifically with movies yeah yeah what kind if I'm just saying like television is just too much like too too long and then like well how about the nature of how people consume movies you're not yeah I mean a theater in appear I mean that's a huge part of it it's like I don't know what people are saying you know movies are being replaced by T and then that might be it but like I think the more we are plugged in the more urgent it is that we have a cultural space that is required to put your phone down it's hilarious that the only place that we are required to put her phone down his place where we looking at bigger but still it's like it's very important to have and also there's like a logistic thing of the size of a the size that I do think the size of your phone screen is actually what makes you feel the way you do about the things on it you're just domineering over these stupid [ __ ] people on your phone truly like of course all this bull like a look at this little [ __ ] yeah yeah I mean look at my stupid friends you'll you'll scroll through your phone and in no particular order you will see your mother the president Jiffy Lube you me it's a but all existing in the same tiny awful space you know and on television it's great but it's also just like yeah it's embedded in your living room you know and scream to be smaller than a screen to be to be subjugated before an image is very very powerful and it's not life-size right the people will be bigger than you but in like I mean just have that having it happen there and for it to be a 13 year old girl you mean a movie that would usually show that should be a television thing or a screaming yeah but it's like no like she should be 30 feet tall and her experience is bigger than you and you should be able to sit back and humble yourself before her because her her interior life is as big as anybody's I mean why can't an epic story about the human condition be about a girl walking into a pool party instead of you know some [ __ ] poet and the cabin in the woods are like some guy with a sword or I don't know you I'm saying like so that was important to me you know um it was same with my stand-up show like I always the scale of things are very important to me so I mean you know it's also a chill I mean please go see this computer but but also it's a chill movie to watch on your laptop because that also has its own don't watch out of your photo no but even your funny I'm just saying it's about a girl on her phone but but please go to the movies and then watch on your phone later yeah it's so to sort of end a little bit on the Connie but you know you said you you feel like you could go back to doing stand-up again yeah where afterwards you're like I think I don't feel like you could so like you were saying you don't think you would we don't know if you're to put a percentage of your life instead of going back I don't know I don't know i I've been performing a little bit here Oh what do you do it like five minutes in LA I mean I'll do a little thing you know like oh I have this song but I do but I don't know what they become you I mean like my big thing was like oh maybe like in my 30s on to like a musical you may have stage musical or something because I would love to I love making things for the theater like I'm saying like and that's why I felt like I was doing like lighting and considable to design a show that doesn't need to travel would be like so incredibly liberating because I was so limited technically because you know I only in whatever it's a very cheap lighting setup for what we got out of it and it had to travel yeah I feel like what oh hello there's now like a vocabulary for staying up to like Broadway the thing that yeah but I wouldn't want to do it just because like for me because like the other thing is like all I would love someone that can actually sing to do myself like truly like like I have the most limited flange ever like nasally flat so like please if I could write it for actual singers that would be incredible so I mean if it if let's say you don't do stand-up again or you sort of do a little here and there or it takes ten years how do you feel that this is essentially for most people like the last I'll be seeing you perform for whatever truly like okay the answer to that like if I have to take that question in its own terms is like happy yeah feel good about that right like it's a good one the real answer is thinking about myself in those terms has led me to nowhere but unhappiness and anxiety to think of myself in terms of my career and how I am seen is bottomless pit of nothing for me it leads absolutely nowhere I don't care about my body of work I don't care about having some I don't really I don't care about having a consistent body of work the only thing that the enjoyment is the current pursuit of whatever I'm doing so yeah the sort of careerists floating over myself is this there's never gonna be happy with that I think anyone would be happy with that I don't think that leads to anything good so like whatever yeah truly that's good so I wanted to end with this the one question which feels appropriate the joke how do you feel like this interview was affected by being in front of people you know every interviews in front of people or it's a conversation yeah you know the people are just you know two months down the line reading it or they're on a podcast everyone's there I mean I'm doing a little thing a time point now yeah you know I'm probably feeling good you know yeah I'm feeling probably a little pressure to like is this funny but but really it's not a I feel I feel freer oven I don't really worry about it too much and I don't know I would I think it's a lot more similar to regular conversation regular I don't think there's a difference anymore I really don't what do you do like everyone everything you do in your life every picture you take every it's like yeah it's all in front of people now yeah everything is in front of people everything has the potential to be in front of people yeah it's 200 people here right maybe a thousand view it online if I say something right now half a million people could see it my career's over yeah I mean it's crazy yeah really really wild and I hope we are I don't just say this on my own behalf because I think I'm pretty good at navigating what's correct is it I hope we're a little more forgiving of everyone especially young people this is not a god this is not to get into Kanye sure it's not funny but it's to get to young people too I hope that people have an ability to think and fail out loud and to grow I have embarrassing offense a bad material for when I was 16 and 17 stuff I cannot stand behind you mean truly I was number like Helen Keller it's not funny I mean that's like mean and not cool and cheap I am pretty ashamed of it but am i bad ashamed that I was 16 and thought that was funny no I can kind of forgive myself for it and to have it still online is to be like I am and to disavow it I think is a powerful way of conveying them I might've deleted that one I actually think I did delete that one but yeah I'll disavow any of that stuff yeah but I guess that's the point is that like this would have scared me two years ago when I made there it doesn't anymore that much because whatever you mean there's and and the world is like over it's like anything so I like truly it's like and I just don't think I don't what do you all feel all right oh it's time for our final segment which so time for it's time for the laughing round - it's like a lightning round but cuz it's comedy it's a laughing round right so that's that's lightning and laughing I got you so they'd make something you know like laying around the rules apply they're gonna be a little bit faster and great better jokes if you could be another comedian like Matt being John mouth which sigh like be in their body while they're comin art okay great do you have a favorite joke joke like a street joke it's long okay a guy is having sex with his wife and she can orgasm this is bad she can't orgasm so he goes the doctor mm-hmm this guy's name is John the doctor says uh he goes my wife can't orgasm he says she have an AC he goes no he goes well sometimes when women aren't cold and they get too hot they can't orgasm so if you don't even HD get a friend and have him walk - towel over you while you have sex and then she'll orgasm so John calls his friend Steve so that night he was [ __ ] his wife John is and Steve is wafting a towel folks are brought 20 minutes she's not coming at all so John goes all right so you've got a switch his [ __ ] Steve Steve starts [ __ ] his wife he's wafting a towel a minute later she orgasms and he says see Steve that's how you walked a [ __ ] town [Applause] should I end it on that one so I'm sad man it's something I wanted to play a sub-game which it's like album Association I'm gonna name each of your albums gonna see the first lyric or thing that you remember from it we're gonna go in order the eponymous first album I just remember my haircut my bad haircut all right that works on the cover of the helpful uh words words words um I think about I think about the art of sad song which I was nineteen it's very sweet you know it's it's sweet I was I was good I was trying ahh what what I think about San Francisco the Regency performing at that place beautiful beautiful place beautiful people and the audience was below me was a very rare thing yeah made it was really really beautiful it may it made the special feel really nice and then make happy ideally not one of the things we've just talked about for an hour yeah make happy I think of I think it's a group of people and my dog do you have a joke that or what is a joke from your career that you've always thought it was so funny that you've tried and tried and it's never worked but you will always think it's funny but at this point you've given up trying to do in front of people and you will do this one last time oh I don't know God Oh God or something that that didn't go as well as you think it should but yeah yeah plenty oh I would have liked real big like that the real thing is like my bits when I would try them on for the first time sometimes it'd be like three minute backing tracks and you get in and within five minutes you're like oh this isn't me five seconds yeah like this is not going well and you have you know two minutes left of the thing to do you know in like it's funny like make a joke about you know taxi cabs and I'm working on it yeah but when you're like trying to make a peanut butter sandwich and it's not going well you look like a tool like like I hear like I'm like really committed most its yeah I wanted to do this thing where it was like like I was on stage making only I'm doing it I probably won't but like I was on stage and then I hear a voice and then I go out and you hear two of my voices arguing that it's like my clone is offstage and then I come back with ripped clothes and you think that I actually killed the real one close as you can see it makes no [ __ ] sense it didn't really work so a lot of it was that another one is like taking a girl up from the audience or whatever it's all I wanted to do you know a lot of things with plants and trying to get fake stuff and have heard do whatever it's not gonna work one last thing before we do this last segment I should note that there will be a meet and greet with Bo in the lounge so [Applause] still acid don't rush us after we're done well don't rush Bo I am NOT talking being grateful I thought I want to if you're okay with this I'm gonna scroll to a random page when we say stop you read that poem and then it'll be the end your sinks out whenever from the puppy's perspective and it's you have to see that it's a box with little holes in it so it's a present from Christmas wait hold on hmm I'm stuck in this thing and I'm wanting to leave there are holes in the thing that hiss when I breathe and the more that I sit here the more I believe that I'm stuck in this thing and won't ever leave back at the kennel the whole cage was ours but maybe these walls are act are better than bars or maybe I'm hurtling skyward to Mars and maybe those holes are actually stars [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Vulture

Views: 301,221

Keywords: bo burnham, eighth grade, bo burnham live, good one

Id: eOABIabgRCg

Length: 53min 57sec (3237 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MrsSttn]

someone uploaded a vid of kanye rant on tik tok and everyone was saying the burrito is a metaphor and i commented and said guys not everything is a metaphor he was just making a fucking joke and someone had the audacity to tell me “if you understood his humor you would know that is has a deeper meaning” …. some people are so prestigious 😂😂