The performer joins the digital interview and at once begins an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, appearing genuinely regretful. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she wants to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Anyone familiar with the unapologetically LGBTQ+ and outspoken project titled Bottoms—which she penned with Emma Seligman and featured in with collaborator the talented actress—will already know that Sennott possesses a lot to share, ranging from on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a high-school brawl society. Plus, after watching her recent seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds even more thoughts on the darker side of modern youth (At 30, Sennott represents an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras with a knack for bridging different age groups).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress is a fan, citing the show alongside the HBO hit, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as guides for I Love LA, which details the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling agent portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant spot on the moodboard went to the HBO series, that program depicting an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in a corrupt LA scene (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott started watching it throughout lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The idea for the series emerged—in part—from firsthand, initially rocky, relocation to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a popular event for followers. That period marked a phase that involved her learn significant life lessons, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while studying performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” 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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at live shows with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females obsessively obsessed with motherhood; another imagined being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she connected with Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a funeral gathering with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her career, she says, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who questioned about Sennott previously will surely be feeling foolish currently. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she seems to have achieved the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled stealer, and potentially becoming a risky persona non grata). Some could easy to produce a series about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at its subjects. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a depiction of advantaged young adult living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.
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
