The star joins the online meeting and at once launches into an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, sounding really apologetic. Despite being only a couple of minutes delayed, she needs to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is precisely what is ideal to hear. Additionally, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass film Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in with her friend The Bear’s standout—would understand that Sennott possesses much to say, whether about roles, relationships, or the merits of forming a high-school fight club. Furthermore, after watching the new multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries additional insights about the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for straddling both generations).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, naming it together with the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as guides for the project, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion who is also new agent Sennott’s character. However, the most significant presence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom depicting an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and decided to put her own twist 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 says. The inspiration for I Love LA emerged—in part—from personal, originally fractious, move to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for enthusiasts. It was an era that involved her understand major 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. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Early Beginnings
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while pursuing theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and posting uproarious (and very) weird skits on the internet. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on a group of women fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; another envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. By chance, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her career, she notes, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, stating humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Anyone who questioned about Sennott previously will certainly be regretting it today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have achieved her dream vehicle. A few years back she uploaded content titled on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about Angelenos juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable persona non grata). One might tempting to create a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. This show steers clear of each, creating a portrait of advantaged millennial life that’s frank about the grot 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
