Bo Burnham

Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham (born August 21, 1990) is an American comedian and singer. He began his career on YouTube in 2006, with his videos gaining over 529 million views as of November 2021.

In 2008, Burnham signed a four-year record deal with Comedy Central Records and released his debut EP, Bo fo Sho. His first full-length album, Bo Burnham, was released the following year. At the age of 18, he became the youngest person to record a half-hour comedy special with Comedy Central. In 2010, his second album, Words Words Words, was released along with his first live comedy special of the same name on Comedy Central. His third album and second comedy special, what., was released in 2013 on his YouTube channel and Netflix. He finished in first place at the 2011 Comedy Central Stand-up Showdown. In 2013, Burnham co-created and starred in the MTV television series Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous and released a book of poetry called Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone. His third stand-up comedy special, Make Happy, was released exclusively on Netflix in 2016.

His debut film as a writer and director, Eighth Grade, was released in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim. Among other accolades, it received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film. In 2020, Burnham starred as Ryan Cooper in the Oscar-winning film Promising Young Woman. His fourth special, Bo Burnham: Inside, was released on Netflix in 2021 to widespread critical acclaim and was nominated in six categories at the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, winning three awards including Outstanding Music Direction. The special also received two nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Best Music Film and Best Song Written for Visual Media ("All Eyes on Me"). Three songs from the special ("Bezos I", "All Eyes on Me", and "Welcome to the Internet") earned Burnham his first charting songs on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 and Global 200 charts.

Early life

Robert Pickering Burnham was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts, on August 21, 1990, the son of hospice nurse Patricia and construction company owner Scott Burnham. His mother's work was shadowed in a 2014 episode of This American Life. In 2008, he graduated from St. John's Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, where he was on the honor roll and involved in theatre and the campus ministry program. He was admitted to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts to study experimental theatre, but instead deferred his admission for a year to pursue a career in comedy.

Career

Early work

In 2006, Burnham videotaped himself performing two songs and posted them on YouTube to share with his family. His song "My Whole Family..." quickly became popular when its YouTube link was shared on Break.com, and it was soon being shared on other sites.

Accompanying himself on guitar or digital piano, Burnham continued to release self-described "pubescent musical comedy" songs and videos online as his audience grew. Described in The Boston Globe as "simultaneously wholesome and disturbing, intimate in a folksy-creepy sort of way", Burnham wrote and released songs about white supremacy, Helen Keller's disabilities, homosexuality, and more. All of Burnham's home-released videos were self-recorded in and around his family's home in Hamilton, Massachusetts, mostly in his bedroom, and had an intentional "do-it-yourself [feel], almost like voyeurism".

Burnham's music and performances tackle such subjects as class, race, gender, human sexuality, sex, and religion. Burnham describes his on-stage persona as a "more arrogant, stuck-up version [of] himself". When speaking with The Detroit News about his rapping, he expressed his intent to honor and respect the perspective and culture of hip-hop music.

Burnham recorded a performance in London for Comedy Central's The World Stands Up in January 2008 (aired June 30), making him the youngest person to do so at the age of 17, and signed a four-record deal with Comedy Central Records. Comedy Central Records released Burnham's first EP, the six-song Bo fo Sho, as an online release-only album on June 17, 2008. Burnham's first full album, the self-titled Bo Burnham, was released on March 10, 2009.

Burnham has performed his music in the United States, including Cobb's Comedy Club, YouTube Live in San Francisco, and Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City, and internationally in London and Montreal. In August 2010, Burnham was nominated for "Best Comedy Show" at the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Awards after his inaugural performance (of Bo Burnham: Words, Words, Words). He instead received the "Panel Prize", a £5,000 prize for "the show or act who has most captured the comedy spirit of the 2010 Fringe".

On March 3, 2009, fifteen Westminster College students (members of the campus' Gay-Straight Alliance, Black Students Association, International Club, and Cultural Diversity Organization) protested his concert there that evening, due to his use of homophobic and racist terms in performances. Of the controversy, he said, "It's so ironic because gay bashers were the ones labeling me in high school. ... I try and write satire that's well-intentioned. But those intentions have to be hidden. It can't be completely clear and that's what makes it comedy." Despite the college's admission that they had booked Burnham while ignorant of his show's material, dean of students John Comerford praised the opportunities for discourse the controversy brought the school.

On May 21, 2010, Burnham taped his first one-hour stand-up special, entitled Words Words Words, for Comedy Central from the House of Blues in Boston as part of the network's new "House of Comedy" series of stand-up specials; it aired on Comedy Central on October 16, 2010. It was released on October 18, 2010. Burnham's second special, titled what., was released on both Netflix and YouTube on December 17, 2013. Burnham's third special, Make Happy, was produced by Netflix and released on June 3, 2016.

In 2010, Burnham wrote, executive-produced, and starred in Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous alongside Dan Lagana, Luke Liacos, and Dave Becky. The series was not picked up for a second season and officially ended on June 26, 2013.

Burnham finished in first place at the 2011 Comedy Central Stand-up Showdown.

Breakthrough

While performing at the Montreal Just for Laughs festival in 2008, Burnham met with director and producer Judd Apatow. That September, he negotiated with Universal Pictures to write and create the music for an Apatow-produced comedy film which he described as the "anti-High School Musical", although he insisted that the script is not a parody of the Disney musicals, but rather an attempt to emulate the high school he attended. Hoping to also star in the film, Burnham told Wired that he named the lead character after himself in a "not-so-subtle hint". In a March 2009 interview with Boston's Weekly Dig, he said that he was spending eight hours a day writing the music for the film and spending his evenings writing the script. Burnham's high school friend Luke Liacos was co-writing the screenplay. In an October 2010 interview with MTV, Burnham admitted that he did not know anything about the future of the project, and that it was all effectively up in the air as far as he knew. In May 2009, viral marketing began appearing for Funny People, in which Burnham starred in an NBC sitcom called Yo Teach! In the promo, he starred opposite Jason Schwartzman as a student in the latter's English class.

Burnham wrote and directed his first feature film, Eighth Grade, which was produced and distributed by A24 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018. The film has been universally acclaimed; among other accolades, it received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film. It garnered a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 316 ratings, and holds an average rating of 89 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Burnham has also directed two comedy specials, Jerrod Carmichael: 8 (2017) for HBO and Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018) for Netflix. In an interview with Vulture, Burnham discussed his directorial outlook when directing a comedy special saying, "I approached [the special], which was me taking stock of the feelings that I get out of watching this person perform and asking, “How can I recreate that for the audience as best as possible? How can I make a good container for the thing?" But the thing is being provided by them, so a lot of directing is just getting out of their way."

In 2019, it was announced Burnham would contribute songs to the upcoming theatrical Sesame Street film, starring Anne Hathaway.

In 2020, he appeared alongside Carey Mulligan in Emerald Fennell's black comedy revenge thriller Promising Young Woman. He plays Ryan Cooper, a pediatric surgeon and love interest for Cassie (Mulligan). The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received awards buzz and critical acclaim, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In an interview Burnham stated, "This is a story I could never tell. This is a perspective I don't have. After doing my own things, it's like I really like the idea of, I just want to serve someone else's vision."

In March 2021, Burnham was cast as Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird in an untitled Los Angeles Lakers project from HBO. Due to scheduling conflicts, he left the series in August 2021.

In April 2021, Burnham announced on social media that he would release a new comedy special called Inside on May 30, which he filmed completely alone in a room of his house without a crew or audience during the COVID-19 pandemic. It received critical acclaim. Inside was nominated in six categories for the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, winning three for Outstanding Music Direction, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special. Burnham also received two nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Best Music Film and Best Song Written for Visual Media ("All Eyes on Me"). Three songs from the album ("Bezos I", "All Eyes on Me", and "Welcome to the Internet") earned Burnham his first charting songs on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 and Global 200 charts.

Style

Burnham has stated that his influences include George Carlin, Kate Berlant, Flight of the Conchords, Mitch Hedberg, Stephen Lynch, Anthony Jeselnik, Demetri Martin, John Cassavetes, Steve Martin, Catherine Breillat, Tim Minchin, and Hans Teeuwen. His musical style has also drawn comparisons to Tom Lehrer, and he was reported to have written his 2009 song "New Math" as a tribute to Lehrer's song of the same name.

Personal life

Burnham has been in a relationship with filmmaker Lorene Scafaria since 2013. They live in Los Angeles.

Work

Comedy specials

Tours

Discography

Filmography

Film

Television

Bibliography

• Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone (2013)

Awards

At the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he was nominated for the main Edinburgh Comedy Award and won both the Edinburgh Comedy Awards' panel prize and the Malcolm Hardee "Act Most Likely to Make a Million Quid" Award.

For his 2018 film Eighth Grade and 2021 comedy special Inside he received several awards and nominations for his writing and directing, including the following: