The performer appears on the digital interview and immediately starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming really regretful. Despite being only a couple of minutes delayed, she feels compelled to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, in this context, that’s just what is ideal to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone who have seen her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and featured in alongside close companion The Bear’s standout—would already know that Sennott has plenty to share, whether on identity, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. And, once you finish the latest multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more perspectives regarding the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott serves as an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras adept for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing the show alongside the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for her series, which follows the journey of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also new agent Sennott’s character. However, the biggest influence on creative vision went to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting an up-and-coming A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “captivated”, 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 notes. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from personal, at first rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. It was an era that included her understand major truths, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “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 New England, the star began creating and acting comedy while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with her friend and posting hilarious (and very) bizarre online content online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely fixated on having babies; another envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. Interestingly, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and eventually starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Individuals who had doubts about Sennott previously will certainly be feeling foolish now. As part of she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have created the perfect project. In 2019 she shared a video titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers managing benefits of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). It would be tempting to create a show about online fame that was horribly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that mocked at those depicted. This show does neither, making for a depiction of privileged young adult living that’s candid about the mess and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“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
