The performer enters the digital interview and immediately begins an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she states, sounding truly apologetic. Although she's only a couple of minutes late, she needs to justify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is exactly what is ideal to encounter. Besides, it’s fairly predictable. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass project titled Bottoms—that Sennott penned with Emma Seligman and starred in alongside collaborator the talented actress—will understand that Sennott has much to discuss, whether about identity, intimacy, or the appeal of creating a youth fight club. Plus, by the end the latest eight-part HBO series I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she holds even more perspectives on the struggles of modern youth (At 30, she serves as an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t be avoided and the actress is enthusiastic, referencing the show alongside Sex and the City, the acclaimed comedy and Atlanta as influences for the project, which tracks the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant spot on creative vision went to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting a rising A-list actor succeeding in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). Sennott began viewing it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to put her own twist on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The inspiration for the series came—partly—from firsthand, at first fractious, transition to Tinseltown and from the cosmic event, a frequently discussed event for followers. That period marked a phase that included her understand major insights, work-wise and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “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
Growing up in New England, Sennott began creating and acting comedy while enrolled in performance at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “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 live shows with her friend and uploading hilarious (and distinctly) bizarre comedy videos online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females fetishistically obsessed with having babies; a different one imagined working at a trendy retail outlet as like being stuck in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful dramedy set at a religious event with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her path, she explains, has been people her own age giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding humorously: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Rising Success
Those who had doubts regarding Sennott earlier will surely be kicking themselves today. Through she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has manifested the perfect project. A few years back she uploaded a video named on LA life on the internet, in which she parodied Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents managing advantages of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being labeled as being a substance-abusing criminal, and possibly becoming a unreliable pariah). It would be easy to produce a show about digital influence that was overly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. This show does neither, making for a depiction of affluent millennial living that’s candid about the chaos 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 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
