The star joins the online meeting and at once starts an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her unapologetically queer and brash project titled Bottoms—that she collaborated on with the director and appeared in together with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will be aware that Sennott has a lot to discuss, ranging from about gender, sex, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. And, once you finish her latest eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more perspectives on the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp skilled for connecting different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, naming it together with the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as guides for her series, which tracks the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new agent Maia. However, the biggest presence on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, that program about a rising celebrity making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it amid COVID-19, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version 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 concept for I Love LA originated—in part—from firsthand, initially rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. It was a phase that saw her understand significant insights, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “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 New England, Sennott began developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at live shows with her friend and posting uproarious (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted a group of women obsessively obsessed with having babies; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up starring in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a religious event with echoes of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, continuing amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about her then will certainly be feeling foolish today. In what she calls a “incredibly circular” story, she appears to manifested an ideal role. Previously she uploaded a video called “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with the co-writer) of a comedy about Angelenos managing advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be tempting to make a show about digital influence that was extremely aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at the characters. The series avoids both, creating a depiction of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” she comments. “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
