During a late-night appearance in 2014, Bo Burnham and fellow comedian Pete Holmes bonded over their height (Burnham stands 6’5” compared to Holmes’ 6’6”), lamenting how exhausting it is to constantly be asked, “Do you play basketball?” Burnham obviously pursued a different career path, though the 30-year-old Hamilton, Massachusetts native will, according to Deadline Hollywood, portray hoops legend Larry Bird in an upcoming HBO drama based on Jeff Pearlman’s best-selling non-fiction book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.
The mini-series is being produced by Adam McKay. A comedy veteran (you may remember him for directing popular studio comedies Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and The Other Guys, each starring long-time writing partner Will Ferrell), McKay has pivoted to more serious subject matter in many of his recent projects including The Big Short, the Academy-Award-nominated Vice and Succession, with the latter also airing on HBO. Along with Burnham, the series will also feature Michael Chiklis as legendary Celtics coach and later executive Red Auerbach, Adrien Brody as Lakers coach Pat Riley, John C. Reilly as Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Sally Field as Jerry’s mother Jessie Buss and Jason Segel as Paul Westhead, who preceded Riley as Los Angeles’ head coach. Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes have been cast as Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, respectively.
Burnham, who rose to prominence as a teenager by gathering a devoted YouTube following, has released four standup specials and made his directorial debut with 2018’s Eighth Grade. As an actor, Burnham has appeared in Funny People, The Big Sick, Key and Peele, Parks and Recreation and Kroll Show, among other on-camera roles.
The immortal Lakers/Celtics rivalry of the 1980s has birthed countless books and documentaries over the years with ESPN revisiting the “Showtime Era” in the recent 30-for-30, Best of Enemies. Bird, a three-time NBA champion with the Celtics and member of the iconic “Dream Team” that dominated the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, is the most recent player to win three consecutive MVPs (1984-86).
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