Major kudos for his debut Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham has scooped a prestigious Hollywood award for his first feature film.

The US comedian won the Directors’ Guild Of America award for his coming-of-age comedy-drama Eighth Grade last night.

He beat fellow nominees including Bradley Cooper for A Star Is Born and Matthew Heineman for A Private War.

Eighth Grade previously won the Sundance London audience award last summer, while Burnham will be travelling to the Glasgow Film Festival at the end of the month for its Scottish premiere.

In Los Angeles last night Bill Hader won the DGA award for best comedy series for the HBO show Barry, which he also co-writes and stars in as a low-rent hitman trying to become an actor.

Ben Stiller won the award for TV movies and limited series for Escape at Dannemora, based on the true story of a jailbreak, while Saturday Night Live’s Don Roy King won for variety, talk, news or sports programme.

The biggest prize, or best feature film, went to Alfonso Cuaron for Roma. 

At the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe, Burnham was named ‘act most likely to make a million quid’ at the Malcolm Hardee Awards.

Published: 3 Feb 2019