The star joins the digital interview and at once starts an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding truly regretful. Although she's only a bit behind, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, that’s just what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who have seen the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in alongside her friend the talented actress—can be aware that she possesses much to say, be it about identity, relationships, or the pros of starting a youth fight club. And, once you finish her new seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds additional thoughts regarding the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras adept for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges enthusiastic, referencing the show together with the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and aspiring representative Sennott’s character. However, the largest presence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, that show focusing on a rising Hollywood star making his way in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The idea for this project emerged—partly—from her own, initially difficult, transition to LA and from her astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her understand significant insights, in her career and in private life. “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 …”
Humble Origins
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Ayo and posting hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre comedy videos on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females obsessively obsessed with having babies; another imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. The big theme of her career, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Anyone who had doubts about Sennott earlier will likely be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “incredibly circular” turn of events, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. A few years back she shared content called on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being suspected of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). It would be easy to create a show about online fame that was extremely aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. The series does neither, creating a representation of advantaged millennial existence that’s candid about the chaos and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” she observes. “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