The actress and writer on her side-splitting show portraying that messy appeal of today's youth lifestyle
The star enters the digital interview and immediately starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding really apologetic. She is only slightly delayed, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s exactly what you want to hear. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers who have seen her unapologetically queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with the director and starred in with her friend The Bear’s standout—will be aware that Sennott has plenty to share, be it on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a high-school fight club. And, once you finish the recent eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries further thoughts about the darker side of young adulthood (At 30, she serves as an honorary member for this generation, on the cusp skilled for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
Parallels to the iconic series Girls are inevitable and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, referencing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which details the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also aspiring talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the biggest spot on the moodboard belonged to the popular sitcom, the program focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in an often-seedy LA scene (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She began viewing it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she explains. The concept for the series emerged—in part—from her own, at first fractious, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a popular occurrence for followers. It was a time that saw her grasp significant truths, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Raised in the East Coast, the star started creating and acting humor while pursuing acting at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she states. “I tried out for all the NYU comedy groups, and got rejected from all of them. “None of the university plays cast me either.” And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at amateur nights with her friend and posting hilarious (and decidedly) unconventional online content on the internet. One, Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively obsessed with having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ended up starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, an anxious comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the intense thriller. A recurring idea of her career, she says, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Individuals who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish now. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she has created the perfect project. A few years back she posted a clip named on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about city dwellers juggling the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being suspected of being a drug-addled criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable persona non grata). It would be simple to create a series about digital influence that was horribly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at those depicted. I Love LA steers clear of each, making for a depiction of privileged young adult existence that’s honest about the grot and the shine.
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
