When comedian-singer-songwriter-rapper-performer-poet and general YouTube age multi-hyphenate Bo Burnham premiered the first film he wrote and directed, 8^th Grade, it was met with wide acclaim from Sundance audiences and critics. That praise was earned by the fresh originality of the film as well as by the remarkable performance of its young star. Barely out of middle school herself, fifteen-year-old Elsie Fisher gives a star turn as Kayla, a young girl trying to navigate the fraught waters of tween social anxiety, which these days is amplified to the umpteenth degree by social media. The HFPA’s Ting Ting Xu spoke to her about the role and the film.