The star appears on the video call and immediately starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely remorseful. Although she's only a bit delayed, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, in this context, that’s precisely what you want to experience. Moreover, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone who know the boldly queer and unapologetically crass movie Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and starred in with close companion The Bear’s standout—can be aware that she holds plenty to share, whether on roles, intimacy, or the pros of creating a youth brawl society. And, by the end her latest seasonal show I Love LA, viewers realize that she holds additional perspectives regarding the darker side of young adulthood (As a millennial, she serves as an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras skilled for bridging both generations).
Influences and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress readily acknowledges a fan, referencing the show alongside the classic series, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for the project, which follows the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally and fledgling agent Sennott’s character. Notably, the most significant spot on concept belonged to Entourage, the show about a rising celebrity making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and resolved to create a new version on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she says. The concept for the series emerged—in part—from personal, initially fractious, transition to LA and from the astrological phase, a popular phenomenon for astrology heads. This represented a time that saw her learn major truths, 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. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Growing up in the East Coast, Sennott started developing and showcasing comedy while pursuing performance at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott seized control, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and posting hysterical (and very) bizarre comedy videos digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females obsessively drawn to motherhood; another imagined working at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a thriller. Interestingly, she connected with Emma through campus film circles and ultimately starring in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her career, she says, has been people her own age offering opportunities, instead of the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she repeats, stating with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Career Breakthrough
Anyone who questioned about Sennott previously will certainly be regretting it currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to created the perfect project. A few years back she posted content named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a comedy about Angelenos managing advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and potentially becoming a risky persona non grata). It would be easy to produce a program about digital influence that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. This show does neither, creating a depiction of privileged young adult life that’s frank about the chaos and the shine.
Nuanced Portrayal
“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
