The star joins the video call and right away launches into an apology. “Apologies for the delay!” she says, appearing really remorseful. She is only slightly late, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Besides, it’s pretty predictable. Anyone who know her boldly openly gay and outspoken project Bottoms—which Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will understand that she possesses much to say, ranging from about gender, intimacy, or the pros of forming a high-school brawl society. Plus, by the end the new seasonal HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that the star holds further perspectives about the challenges of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she serves as an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras skilled for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Guiding Lights and Artistic Direction
Parallels to the iconic series Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being enthusiastic, naming the show in addition to the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which follows the struggles of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also fledgling representative Maia. Notably, the largest presence on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, that show about an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She began viewing it amid the pandemic, became “hooked”, and decided to create a new version on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she notes. The inspiration for the series originated—partly—from personal, at first fractious, transition to LA and from the astrological phase, a much-talked-about occurrence for followers. This represented a time that involved her grasp some big life lessons, in her career and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Raised in Connecticut, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at open mics with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely fixated on motherhood; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she met Emma through NYU’s movie community and eventually starring in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a religious event with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her path, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott then will certainly be regretting it today. As part of she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she has created an ideal role. A few years back she shared content titled on LA life online, in which she parodied movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a comedy about LA residents balancing benefits of digital stardom (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a unreliable pariah). Some could tempting to make a series about internet celebrity that was overly glamorous—or, even less favorable, one that mocked at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a depiction of affluent millennial life that’s honest about the grot and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
