The performer appears on the video call and at once starts an apology. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. She is only slightly behind, she needs to clarify. “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!” Fortunately, during an interview, this is exactly what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Viewers who have seen the boldly openly gay and unapologetically crass film titled Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and starred in alongside her friend The Bear’s standout—will be aware that Sennott holds a lot to say, be it about gender, relationships, or the appeal of forming a high-school fight club. Furthermore, by the end the latest seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that she has even more insights regarding the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, Sennott represents a relatable figure for this generation, on the cusp skilled for connecting both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show are inevitable and Sennott readily acknowledges enthusiastic, citing it in addition to the HBO hit, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for the project, which tracks the journey of a social media star played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and fledgling talent manager Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant spot on the moodboard went to Entourage, the HBO sitcom focusing on a rising Hollywood star navigating in an often-seedy entertainment industry (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to create a new version 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 says. The idea for I Love LA came—in part—from her own, at first difficult, move to Los Angeles and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for followers. That period marked a phase that involved her understand some big insights, in her career and personally. “During my younger years, I was chaotic, often breaking down in public,” she admits. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in the East Coast, the star began creating and acting comedy while studying performance at NYU’s Tisch. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” 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.” “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with her friend and uploading uproarious (and very) weird online content digitally. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed several females fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; a different one imagined being employed at the brand Hollister as like being caught in a horror film. In a neat twist of fate, she connected with Seligman through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been contemporaries offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Rising Success
Those who were skeptical about her earlier will surely be kicking themselves today. Through she labels a “wild, full-circle” story, she has manifested the perfect project. Previously she shared a clip titled on LA life on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a comedy about LA residents balancing the perks of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your client being labeled as being a drug-addled thief, and potentially becoming a risky outcast). Some could tempting to produce a series about digital influence that was horribly idealized—or, worse, one that belittled at those depicted. The series does neither, resulting in a portrait of advantaged millennial life that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.
Empathetic Approach
“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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
