The performer enters the video call and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, seeming truly regretful. She is only a bit behind, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, this is precisely what you want to hear. Moreover, it’s quite predictable. Those who know the boldly queer and outspoken film Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and featured in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—can already know that she has a lot to say, be it about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a teen combat group. Furthermore, once you finish her recent seasonal show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds even more perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a bridge of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for bridging different age groups).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, referencing the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for the project, which follows the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also new agent Maia. Notably, the most significant presence on creative vision went to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor making his way in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and resolved to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from firsthand, at first difficult, relocation to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. This represented a phase that saw her grasp significant life lessons, in her career and personally. “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.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced writing and performing humor while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively drawn to motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding her then will surely be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded a clip named on LA life online, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a show about city dwellers managing advantages of internet fame (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being labeled as being a drug-addled criminal, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). One might tempting to create a program about online fame that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a depiction of privileged twentysomething living that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she says. “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
