Chris Rock’s first stand-up special in almost ten years, Tamborine, debuted on Netflix on Valentine’s Day. And the illustrious comic tapped YouTube veteran Bo Burnham — a multi-talented performer and director in his own right — to helm the project.
Burnham, who appeared in his own highly-acclaimed comedy and music special for Netflix back in 2016 called Make Happy, tells Splitsider that Tambourine represents slightly new territory for Rock. “The front half he’s delivering this classic Chris Rock stuff that you know and expect from him — stuff about the world and politics and the state of culture,” the 27-year-old says. “Then, in the second half, he goes personal in a way that he never has before.”
Recently, Burnham — who first rose to fame on YouTube in 2006, but hasn’t updated his channel in over a year — says he’s moved away from performing to focus his energy behind the camera. His feature film directorial debut, Eighth Grade — about a teen girl struggling to survive her last week of middle school — premiered last month at the Sundance Film Festival.
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Burnham’s past projects include several comedy albums and Comedy Central stand-up specials, the MTV series Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous (which he co-created and starred in), and a poetry collection entitled Egghead: Or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone. He also appeared in Rough Night and The Big Sick, and directed the HBO stand-up special 8 for burgeoning comic Jerrod Carmichael.
Check out the trailer for Tamborine — which is the first of two specials that Rock is set to headline for Netflix in a deal reportedly worth $40 million — below:
