The star appears on the online meeting and at once launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding genuinely remorseful. Despite being only a bit late, she wants to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, that’s exactly what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite expected. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly queer and unapologetically crass movie titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—would already know that she has plenty to discuss, ranging from about gender, sex, or the pros of forming a teen combat group. Furthermore, once you finish the recent multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more insights on the struggles of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott is a relatable figure for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress is a fan, citing the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which follows the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting a rising A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it throughout COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for the series emerged—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. This represented a time that involved her understand major insights, professionally and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing stand-up while studying acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and distinctly) unconventional comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through the university’s film scene and ultimately starring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she repeats, continuing humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about her then will surely be kicking themselves currently. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded a clip named on LA life on social media, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers juggling the perks of digital stardom (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might easy to make a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a representation of advantaged millennial life that’s honest about the chaos and the glamour.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she comments. “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
