Reports: Bo Burnham to play Larry Bird in Adam McKay’s new HBO series

Bo Burnham has some great shoes to fill

The award-winning actor / director / comedian (“Eighth Series”) and a native of Hamilton was cast as the legendary Celtics striker Larry Bird in HBO’s upcoming Adam McKay dramatic series on the 1980s “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers, according to with several reports.

Based on Jeff Pearlman’s book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers dynasty”, the series will chronicle “the professional and personal life” of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, according to HBO.

Burnham, who is 1.98 m tall, according to IMDb, was most recently seen in the Oscar-nominated black comedy “Promising Young Woman”. Burnham, who started out as a teenager composing comedy songs on YouTube, was also working on songwriting for the upcoming film “Vila Sésamo”.

News of the Burnham cast comes shortly after HBO announces that another location – Lowell native Michael Chiklis – will play Celtics coach / executive Red Auerbach on the series. Other top stars on the show include Sally Field (“Forrest Gump”) as Jessie Buss, Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”) as Pat Riley, John C. Reilly (“Chicago”) as Jerry Buss and Jason Clarke (“Chappaquiddick ”) Like Jerry West. Newcomer Quincy Isaiah will play Magic Johnson, while Rob Morgan (“Mudbound”), who also stars in McKay’s “Don’t Look Up”, will play Senior Earvin Johnson

The untitled series is scheduled to be released in 2022 and will be written by Max Borenstein (“Godzilla”).