The performer appears on the video call and right away starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, appearing genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a bit behind, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, for a writer, that’s precisely what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and outspoken film Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and appeared in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—will already know that Sennott holds plenty to say, ranging from on gender, intimacy, or the merits of forming a youth brawl society. And, after watching her latest seasonal program I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries additional thoughts on the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a bridge of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing it alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also aspiring talent manager Maia. Notably, the largest influence on the moodboard went to the popular sitcom, the program about an emerging Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for the series came—in part—from personal, originally difficult, relocation to Los Angeles and from the cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that involved her learn major insights, work-wise and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Starting Out
Raised in Connecticut, the star began developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre 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 explains. “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.”
Sennott decided to act independently, performing at amateur nights with her friend and uploading hysterical (and very) bizarre skits digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women obsessively drawn to motherhood; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical regarding her earlier will surely be feeling foolish now. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. In 2019 she uploaded a video titled “it’s LA” on social media, in which she mocked film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a show about Angelenos juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your associate being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). Some could simple to produce a series about online fame that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at the characters. This show steers clear of each, making for a depiction of advantaged young adult living that’s honest about the chaos 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
