The performer joins the digital interview and immediately launches into an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, seeming truly regretful. She is only a bit delayed, she wants to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, this is exactly what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her boldly LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—which she co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside close companion Ayo Edebiri—will understand that she holds much to share, whether on gender, relationships, or the pros of creating a high-school combat group. And, by the end the recent eight-part show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has additional thoughts about the challenges of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott serves as a bridge of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and the actress is an admirer, naming the show alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as guides for the project, which tracks the travails of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling representative Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant influence on the moodboard belonged to the HBO series, the program about a rising Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy entertainment industry (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it during COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist 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 idea for this project came—partly—from personal, at first difficult, transition to LA and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that saw her grasp significant insights, in her career and personally. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in New England, Sennott began creating and acting stand-up while pursuing acting at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, followed a group of women intensely obsessed with motherhood; another imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as akin to being stuck in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of the intense thriller. The central motif of her journey, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it today. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. Previously she uploaded a video named on LA life on social media, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about city dwellers balancing the perks of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a unreliable outcast). Some could simple to produce a show about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA does neither, creating a depiction of advantaged twentysomething life that’s honest about the grot and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
