The star joins the video call and at once launches into an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing truly apologetic. Although she's only a bit delayed, she feels compelled to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly expected. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically queer and unapologetically crass movie titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and appeared in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—can understand that she holds plenty to share, be it on roles, sex, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. And, by the end the latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries further perspectives on the challenges of young adulthood (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member to younger audiences, on the cusp with a knack for connecting both generations).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott admits to being an admirer, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also fledgling agent Sennott’s character. However, the largest influence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that program focusing on an emerging Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it throughout lockdown, became “obsessed”, 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 concept for I Love LA came—to some extent—from personal, initially fractious, move to LA and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for enthusiasts. It was a phase that included her understand significant truths, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “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, taking the stage at open mics with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and very) weird skits digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters intensely obsessed with having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and ultimately starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Individuals who were skeptical about Sennott previously will certainly be kicking themselves currently. In what she calls a “wild, full-circle” story, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. In 2019 she shared content called on LA life online, in which she mocked movie previews (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers managing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). One might easy to make a program about internet celebrity that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. This show does neither, creating a portrait of advantaged young adult life that’s frank about the grot and the shine.
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 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
