The star enters the online meeting and at once starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she states, sounding really regretful. She is only a couple of minutes late, she wants to explain. “I have such a problem, because I’m a yapper on the phone. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is precisely what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s pretty unsurprising. Those who have seen her unapologetically queer and brash movie titled Bottoms—which Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and starred in with her friend Ayo Edebiri—will already know that Sennott possesses much to share, whether about identity, relationships, or the merits of starting a high-school brawl society. Plus, by the end the new eight-part program I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries further thoughts about the struggles of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a relatable figure for this generation, a tale-end millennial skilled for straddling both generations).
Inspirations and Creative Vision
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott admits to being a fan, naming it together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for her series, which follows the travails of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and new talent manager Sennott’s character. Perhaps, the biggest spot on creative vision belonged to the HBO series, that program focusing on a rising Hollywood star succeeding in a corrupt entertainment industry (choice quote: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it throughout COVID-19, became “captivated”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she says. The concept for this project came—partly—from personal, originally fractious, move to Tinseltown and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a time that saw her learn significant life lessons, work-wise and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Raised in the East Coast, Sennott started developing and showcasing stand-up while studying performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” 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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing hysterical (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, centered on several females obsessively drawn to having babies; another envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of Uncut Gems. A recurring idea of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, continuing with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will surely be regretting it currently. Through she describes as a “incredibly circular” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she uploaded content named “it’s LA” on social media, in which she parodied movie previews (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a series about LA residents juggling benefits of online celebrity (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). It would be simple to make a series about online fame that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of privileged millennial living that’s frank about the grot and the appeal.
Balanced Perspective
“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
