The performer joins the video call and at once starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Viewers who have seen her boldly LGBTQ+ and outspoken project titled Bottoms—which Sennott co-wrote with the director and starred in alongside collaborator the talented actress—will understand that she possesses much to say, be it about gender, sex, or the merits of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching her new eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds additional insights about the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being a fan, referencing the show together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as influences for her series, which details the struggles of an influencer Tallulah and her friend who is also fledgling representative Maia. However, the most significant spot on creative vision was reserved for the popular sitcom, the HBO sitcom about an emerging celebrity navigating in a corrupt Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott started watching it amid lockdown, became “hooked”, and decided to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she notes. The idea for I Love LA emerged—to some extent—from personal, at first difficult, move to LA and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a phase that included her understand some big life lessons, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Brought up in New England, Sennott began creating and acting humor while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at live shows with Edebiri and sharing hysterical (and distinctly) bizarre skits digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted several females fetishistically fixated on having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her career, she says, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical about Sennott previously will surely be regretting it now. Through she calls a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she appears to created an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled on LA life on social media, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about Angelenos juggling the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing stealer, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to make a series about online fame that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a depiction of advantaged young adult living that’s frank about the mess and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
