The star appears on the video call and right away begins an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing really apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the fearlessly LGBTQ+ and brash project titled Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend the talented actress—can be aware that Sennott holds plenty to discuss, be it on identity, relationships, or the appeal of creating a youth fight club. And, after watching her latest multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star has even more thoughts about the struggles of modern youth (At 30, she serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling different age groups).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for I Love LA, which details the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that program depicting a rising celebrity succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She discovered it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for this project came—to some extent—from her own, originally difficult, transition to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a popular occurrence for enthusiasts. That period marked a time that involved her learn major insights, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Growing up in New England, the star started creating and acting stand-up while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Ayo and posting uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women fetishistically drawn to motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, continuing humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who were skeptical about her then will certainly be feeling foolish currently. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she posted a video named on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers juggling the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a risky pariah). It would be easy to create a show about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. This show steers clear of each, making for a depiction of affluent millennial living that’s honest about the chaos and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” she observes. “I think that young people have been through a lot – I’m mostly thinking of people younger than me, like my little sister, who went to college during Covid, so she had to come home, or my other sister who was doing school online.”|“The younger generation has faced significant
