🔗 Share this article

The performer joins the video call and right away launches into an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. Despite being only slightly delayed, she feels compelled 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!” Luckily, for a writer, this is exactly what you want to hear. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly LGBTQ+ and outspoken project titled Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with Emma Seligman and starred in with collaborator The Bear’s standout—can already know that she possesses much to share, ranging from about identity, intimacy, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching the latest multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star holds additional thoughts regarding the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp adept for bridging both generations).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

The comparisons to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, citing it alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant influence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the HBO sitcom about an emerging A-list actor succeeding in a gritty Hollywood (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it during the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The inspiration for I Love LA came—in part—from firsthand, at first rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and personally. “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. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Starting Out

Brought up in Connecticut, Sennott started creating and acting comedy while enrolled in theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” 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.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

She decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hysterical (and very) bizarre skits on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically obsessed with motherhood; another envisioned working at the brand Hollister as like being trapped in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who questioned about Sennott previously will surely be regretting it today. As part of she labels a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a video called “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a risky pariah). Some could simple to make a program about internet celebrity that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA does neither, resulting in a portrait of affluent young adult existence that’s honest about the grot and the shine.

Balanced Perspective

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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