The performer appears on the online meeting and immediately starts an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, seeming truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes behind, she feels compelled to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, during an interview, that’s just what you want to experience. Additionally, it’s pretty expected. Viewers who know her unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass movie titled Bottoms—which she collaborated on with the director and appeared in alongside collaborator the talented actress—will be aware that Sennott holds plenty to discuss, ranging from about gender, relationships, or the pros of forming a youth fight club. Plus, after watching the recent multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds even more thoughts on the challenges of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as a bridge for this generation, a tale-end millennial adept for straddling both generations).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, naming the show alongside Sex and the City, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which details the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also fledgling agent portrayed by Sennott. Notably, the biggest presence on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the program about an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in a gritty entertainment industry (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it during the pandemic, became “captivated”, and decided 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 says. The idea for I Love LA originated—to some extent—from firsthand, initially fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was an era that involved her understand some big life lessons, professionally and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”
Early Beginnings
Raised in the East Coast, Sennott commenced creating and acting humor while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” 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. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and decidedly) unconventional comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically fixated on pregnancy; another portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being stuck in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and eventually starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her career, she explains, has been people her own age supporting her, as opposed to traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who were skeptical about Sennott earlier will surely be regretting it currently. Through she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a comedy about city dwellers managing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a intoxicated thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” persona non grata). Some could easy to create a series about internet celebrity that was extremely aspirational—or, worse, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, creating a representation of affluent young adult living that’s candid about the mess 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 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
