The performer joins the digital interview and immediately launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding really apologetic. Despite being only slightly delayed, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is exactly what you want to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty expected. Anyone who know her fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with her creative partner and featured in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—can be aware that she has a lot to share, whether on identity, intimacy, or the pros of creating a teen brawl society. Furthermore, by the end the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds even more thoughts regarding the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress is an admirer, citing it together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new representative Maia. Notably, the most significant presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty Hollywood (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The concept for this project came—to some extent—from firsthand, initially fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a popular phenomenon for followers. This represented an era that involved her learn significant truths, in her career and in private life. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced writing and performing comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, appearing at open mics with Ayo and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters intensely fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through campus film circles and ended up featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of Uncut Gems. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Individuals who were skeptical regarding Sennott earlier will surely be feeling foolish today. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have created an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded content called on LA life on social media, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos managing advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be tempting to create a program about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a representation of advantaged twentysomething life that’s candid about the grot and the shine.
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 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
