The performer appears on the online meeting and right away launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, sounding truly remorseful. Despite being only a couple of minutes late, she wants to clarify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, that’s exactly what is ideal to hear. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash film Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would already know that she holds a lot to share, ranging from about identity, intimacy, or the pros of creating a youth brawl society. Furthermore, by the end her latest eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds even more thoughts on the darker side of Gen Z life (Now in her thirties, Sennott serves as a relatable figure to younger audiences, on the cusp adept for connecting both generations).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being a fan, citing the show in addition to the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for I Love LA, which details the journey of online personality Tallulah and ally who is also aspiring representative portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the most significant influence on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the program depicting an emerging celebrity making his way in a gritty entertainment industry (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott started watching it amid lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective 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 the series came—partly—from personal, initially difficult, move to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed event for followers. That period marked an era that included her grasp some big insights, work-wise and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, Sennott began developing and showcasing comedy while enrolled in performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” 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.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, followed several females intensely fixated on having babies; another envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being caught in a scary movie. Interestingly, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries supporting her, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who were skeptical about her then will likely be regretting it currently. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” development, she seems to have manifested an ideal role. Previously she shared a video named on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos managing benefits of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a risky outcast). Some could tempting to create a show about online fame that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. This show steers clear of each, creating a portrait of advantaged twentysomething life that’s frank about the chaos and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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
