The star enters the video call and at once begins an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she says, seeming genuinely apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes late, she needs to clarify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, in this context, this is exactly what one hopes to hear. Additionally, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and brash project titled Bottoms—that Sennott penned with her creative partner and featured in alongside collaborator Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott has plenty to say, whether on gender, intimacy, or the pros of creating a teen brawl society. Plus, after watching her latest multi-episode HBO series titled I Love LA, it is clear that she holds further thoughts about the challenges of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and the innovative program as inspirations for her series, which tracks the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally and fledgling representative Maia. Notably, the biggest influence on creative vision went to the popular sitcom, that program focusing on a rising celebrity navigating in a gritty Hollywood (notable statement: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She discovered it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she notes. The idea for this project emerged—to some extent—from her own, originally rocky, move to LA and from her cosmic event, a popular event for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that involved her grasp significant truths, work-wise and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Starting Out
Brought up in New England, Sennott began writing and performing comedy while enrolled in theatre at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
She seized control, appearing at amateur nights with her friend and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, followed characters obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and ended up featuring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with shades of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Those who questioned about Sennott earlier will likely be regretting it currently. Through she labels a “astonishingly complete” story, she appears to achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she shared a video named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about Angelenos managing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and potentially becoming a “brand unsafe” outcast). It would be easy to create a show about internet celebrity that was extremely glamorous—or, worse, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA does neither, creating a depiction of affluent young adult life that’s candid about the chaos 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 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
