It’s one surprise after another with Bo Burnham. The Massachusetts-born musician, comedian, and filmmaker, once exclusively known for doing it for the Vine, is now a critics darling. Three years ago, his directorial debut Eighth Grade became one of the most well-reviewed films of the year. Our own A.A. Dowd called it “a perceptive, realistic comedy about tweenage life that’s also rich in compassion.” If that wasn’t enough, he popped up as the main romantic interest in the Academy Award-winning Promising Young Woman.
But as the world turned inward due to the coronavirus pandemic, so too did Burnham. He wasn’t sitting idly, though. As if to make us feel even worse about his myriad of accomplishments, the 30-year-old actor/director/musician/comedian also self-produced a comedy special for Netflix, while the rest of us were contemplating whether or not to wear hard or soft pants to work that day. Earlier Wednesday, he dropped the first look for Inside, and, ugh, c’mon, take a day off, guy.
“i made a new special,” he tweeted. “it was filmed by me, alone, without a crew or an audience, over the course of the past year. it is almost finished. i hope you like it.”
It’s hard to glean much from the trailer, aside from the special being a return to his piano-based comedy. Also, there’s a creepy guy hiding in the closet, so maybe there’s a horror element? We’ll have to wait and see.
This would be his fifth comedy special and first since 2016's Bo Burnham: Make Happy. But it’s not like he forgot how to make one of those, too. In between everything else, he also directed specials for Chris Rock and Jerrod Carmichael. Thanks for making us feel great about ourselves, Bo. We really needed this.