The performer joins the video call and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, appearing truly regretful. Despite being only slightly behind, she feels compelled to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Those who have seen her fearlessly openly gay and outspoken project Bottoms—that she collaborated on with her creative partner and featured in together with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can be aware that Sennott has plenty to discuss, be it on roles, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a teen fight club. And, after watching the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star holds additional insights on the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she serves as a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott is a fan, referencing it in addition to the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and ally who is also fledgling talent manager Sennott’s character. However, the largest influence on the moodboard went to Entourage, the program about a rising A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from her own, originally rocky, move to LA and from her saturn return, a popular occurrence for followers. That period marked an era that involved her grasp some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott commenced developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She decided to act independently, appearing at open mics with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted characters intensely fixated on motherhood; a different one imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being caught in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up starring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she says, has been people her own age giving her a shot, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Those who questioned about her earlier will certainly be regretting it currently. As part of she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to created the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a video titled on LA life online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). Some could easy to create a program about digital influence that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a depiction of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s candid 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
