The star joins the online meeting and at once starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding really regretful. Although she's only a bit late, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is just what one hopes to hear. Besides, it’s pretty expected. Viewers familiar with the unapologetically queer and brash project titled Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with her friend The Bear’s standout—would already know that she has plenty to share, whether on identity, relationships, or the pros of creating a high-school brawl society. Furthermore, once you finish her new eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it is clear that she carries even more thoughts about the struggles of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging different age groups).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress is a fan, referencing the show in addition to the classic series, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the biggest presence on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom about a rising Hollywood star making his way in a gritty Hollywood (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to create a new version on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for this project originated—to some extent—from personal, originally rocky, relocation to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed event for enthusiasts. This represented a phase that saw her learn major life lessons, in her career and personally. “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 the East Coast, Sennott started writing and performing stand-up while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “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. “None of the university plays cast me either.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Edebiri and uploading hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely drawn to pregnancy; another portrayed working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through NYU’s movie community and eventually featuring in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious film set at a funeral gathering with hints of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her path, she notes, has been people her own age giving her a shot, as opposed to the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who were skeptical regarding her previously will likely be regretting it now. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” turn of events, she appears to achieved an ideal role. In 2019 she posted a clip named on LA life on the internet, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about city dwellers managing the perks of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). One might simple to make a show about online fame that was overly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at its subjects. The series does neither, making for a depiction of affluent millennial existence that’s frank about the mess and the shine.
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
