Previously unknown aside from her voice acting in the Despicable Me series, Elsie Fisher is a star-in-the-making thanks to her performance in Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. Her endearing, word-stumbling awkwardness gives Kyle Mooney a run for his money. In many ways, Fisher is the not-yet-bloomed version of 17-year-old Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird.
Kayla is shy, on the cusp of learning that she has something to offer. She spends her free time glued to screens. Her mirror is littered with self-motivational sticky notes. She has a YouTube Vlog where she offers insights to a tiny following: “The hard part of being yourself is that it’s not easy.” Kayla helps us remember how high the stakes felt in middle school. In our interview, Fisher and I talked about what drew her to the role, and what Eighth Grade means to her as a real live teenager.
Dylan Kai Dempsey is a New York-based writer/filmmaker. His reviews have been published in Vanity Fair, Variety, No Film School, Nonfiction.fr and IONCINEMA.com. He’s also developing a graphic novel as well as his own award-winning pilot script, #Likes4Lucas. He began as a development intern at Bonafide Productions in L.A. and Rainmark Productions in London.
