The star appears on the video call and right away begins an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, appearing genuinely remorseful. She is only slightly behind, she needs to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to encounter. Additionally, it’s fairly predictable. Anyone familiar with her unapologetically queer and outspoken movie titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—will be aware that she holds plenty to say, be it about gender, sex, or the pros of creating a teen fight club. Furthermore, once you finish her latest multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries further thoughts on the challenges of modern youth (As a millennial, she represents a relatable figure of the gang, a tale-end millennial with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, referencing it together with the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for the project, which follows the travails of a social media star Tallulah and close companion who is also aspiring talent manager Maia. Notably, the largest spot on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the show about an up-and-coming Hollywood star navigating in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “obsessed”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for I Love LA came—in part—from personal, at first difficult, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a popular phenomenon for followers. It was a phase that included her learn some big insights, in her career and personally. “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 was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott commenced creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and very) weird online content on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, as opposed to traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical about Sennott earlier will likely be feeling foolish currently. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she has manifested her dream vehicle. In 2019 she uploaded content named on LA life online, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a show about Angelenos juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). Some could simple to create a program about digital influence that was horribly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at those depicted. This show does neither, resulting in a depiction of privileged twentysomething living that’s candid about the grot and the shine.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
