🔗 Share this article

The performer enters the video call and at once begins an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, sounding truly regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she wants to justify. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what is ideal to experience. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those familiar with the unapologetically queer and brash film titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside close companion the talented actress—would already know that she holds much to say, whether on roles, relationships, or the pros of forming a teen fight club. Plus, by the end the recent eight-part show I Love LA, it becomes obvious that the star carries even more thoughts on the darker side of modern youth (As a millennial, she serves as an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras adept for bridging both generations).

Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction

The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and the actress is an admirer, naming it in addition to Sex and the City, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for her series, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling representative portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant influence on concept went to the popular sitcom, that HBO sitcom about a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “captivated”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The inspiration for this project originated—in part—from personal, at first rocky, relocation to LA and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. It was a time that involved her learn significant insights, work-wise and individually. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “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 the East Coast, the star started creating and acting humor while pursuing theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “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?”

She decided to act independently, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing hilarious (and very) bizarre skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as akin to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and ended up featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”

Career Breakthrough

Those who had doubts about Sennott then will certainly be regretting it now. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” story, she seems to have manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared content named “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling advantages of digital stardom (such as partying at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your friend being suspected of being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a risky pariah). It would be tempting to make a program about online fame that was overly idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, creating a representation of affluent twentysomething existence that’s frank about the grot and the appeal.

Empathetic Approach

“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