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This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That is me. I'm part of the Vox Media

Podcast Network. I'm here at Vox Media headquarters in New York City. Please tell someone else

about the show, but only if you like it. I am here with Bo Burnham, who's very tall. He's also

the writer and director of eighth grade.

My script here says he's a stand-up comedian and early YouTube star. I think those things are all technically correct. Sure. I want to talk to you about all that stuff. I want to talk about eighth grade first. What I wish everyone could do is experience eighth grade the way I experienced, which is I showed up at a screening. I knew nothing about the movie other than it was made by a comedian named Bo Burnham.

And then I was blown away. Oh, appreciate it. So one thing you might want to do if you listen to this is stop listening to this and then come back and listen to it again. Yeah, I would ideally like people to know even less than you did. Just show up. Where am I? Yeah, exactly. Okay, if you're still listening, you know that eighth grade is a movie about, and eighth grader. I was expecting you to be in the movie. Most people who make movies who are comedians often put themselves in it. And for a while, I was like, I bet the dad is bober. Oh my gosh. So I was, I was,

I came in so cold. You're not in the movie.

No. You are, you are someone who became famous on YouTube.

You are a stand-up comedian. Then you have, at the age of 26, 27, made an indie movie about an eighth-grade girl and did not put yourself in it.

Yes, I am actually buried, buried in the movie out of necessity. There's a, there's a buried voice in the puberty video that happens as the kids are doing stuff way, way in

the background, and we just couldn't get a voice actor in. So he put my voice in and then pitched it up

a few, um, semitone so you can't really tell it's me. So I want to talk about your comedy and your career, but I think had I known about you, prior to watching this movie, I would not have predicted this movie to come out of you. I'm sure I'm one of many people who have told you this. There's some levity in this movie, there's humor in it because it's about a real, it's a realistic description of a person, so her life is in some ways funny. And just like that, and the sex-ide clip you talked about is funny. Yeah, yeah, life is funny. But it's not a comedy. Yeah, it's probably not a straight comedy. Yeah, probably not. So was this something that you've been wanting to do for a long time? Was this something that came up relatively recently for you? No, it's been, you know, I wrote it like three years ago or something, but, you know, I've been wanting to collaborate with people again. I grew up doing theater and that's sort of what I first fell in love with and then fell into stand-up and then tried to drag every element of theater that I loved into stand-up. And then by the end was just like very tired of looking to myself only for inspiration

and speaking through myself about myself with myself.

It was just tiring and unfulfilling.

So, yeah, I wanted to get back and work with people again.

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