The performer joins the online meeting and immediately launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding genuinely remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes behind, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, for a writer, this is precisely what you want to hear. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Those familiar with her boldly queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—will understand that Sennott possesses a lot to share, be it about identity, intimacy, or the pros of forming a high-school combat group. Plus, after watching her new multi-episode show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star holds additional perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Likenesses to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and the actress admits to being a fan, naming the show in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which details the journey of a social media star Tallulah and close companion and new representative Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the largest spot on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The idea for the series came—in part—from her own, initially difficult, transition to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a time that saw her grasp significant insights, professionally and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Raised in New England, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while pursuing 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. “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 decided to act independently, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and posting uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; a different one portrayed working at the brand Hollister as like being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with echoes of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, stating humorously: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who had doubts about her earlier will certainly be feeling foolish today. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have manifested an ideal role. A few years back she posted a video titled about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). It would be tempting to produce a series about digital influence that was overly aspirational—or, worse, one that punched down at its subjects. I Love LA does neither, making for a representation of advantaged twentysomething existence that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.
Balanced Perspective
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
