The performer enters the video call and right away launches into an excuse. “Apologies for the delay!” she exclaims, sounding truly regretful. She is only a bit late, she feels compelled to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, during an interview, this is precisely what you want to encounter. Additionally, it’s pretty predictable. Those who have seen her fearlessly openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—which she penned with her creative partner and appeared in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott possesses much to discuss, be it on gender, sex, or the appeal of creating a high-school combat group. And, by the end her recent seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries additional perspectives about the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras skilled for connecting millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, referencing the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the travails of a social media star Tallulah and her friend and aspiring agent Sennott’s character. However, the biggest spot on the moodboard was reserved for the popular sitcom, the program depicting an up-and-coming celebrity navigating in a gritty LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it throughout lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The idea for this project originated—partly—from personal, initially fractious, move to Los Angeles and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed event for enthusiasts. This represented an era that saw her understand major insights, work-wise and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott started writing and performing humor while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott decided to act independently, taking the stage at open mics with Ayo and sharing hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre online content on the internet. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically fixated on having babies; a different one imagined being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually appearing in her directorial debut, titled Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she explains, has been peers supporting her, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, adding amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding her previously will certainly be regretting it today. In what she labels a “astonishingly complete” development, she seems to have achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she posted content called on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents managing the perks of online celebrity (such as partying at a celebrity’s house) with downsides (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). One might simple to produce a show about digital influence that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that punched down at the characters. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of affluent young adult living that’s frank about the mess 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
