The performer enters the video call and right away begins an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, appearing truly regretful. Although she's only slightly delayed, she needs to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Fortunately, in this context, that’s precisely what you want to hear. Additionally, it’s quite predictable. Anyone who have seen the unapologetically queer and brash project Bottoms—that she co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in together with her friend The Bear’s standout—would already know that she has a lot to share, be it on identity, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a high-school brawl society. Plus, after watching the recent multi-episode program I Love LA, it is clear that she carries additional insights regarding the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, she represents an honorary member of the gang, straddling eras with a knack for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Creative Vision
Parallels to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as guides for the project, which follows the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the biggest presence on creative vision went to the HBO series, that HBO sitcom depicting a rising A-list actor making his way in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). She started watching it throughout the pandemic, became “hooked”, and chose to add a fresh perspective 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 I Love LA emerged—partly—from firsthand, initially rocky, relocation to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. It was a time that saw her grasp some big truths, work-wise and in private life. “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 …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, the star commenced writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in performance at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she says. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with Ayo and posting uproarious (and distinctly) weird online content digitally. One, titled Baby Cult, followed several females intensely drawn to having babies; another envisioned being employed at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a thriller. Interestingly, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense dramedy set at a religious event with hints of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her journey, she notes, has been peers offering opportunities, as opposed to established gatekeepers. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she emphasizes, continuing amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who had doubts about her earlier will likely be kicking themselves now. In what she labels a “wild, full-circle” story, she seems to have manifested the perfect project. A few years back she posted content named about Los Angeles on social media, in which she parodied film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s the co-showrunner (with the co-writer) of a series about LA residents managing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with drawbacks (your friend being accused of being a intoxicated criminal, and perhaps becoming a risky persona non grata). It would be easy to produce a show about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at the characters. The series does neither, resulting in a depiction of advantaged millennial existence that’s frank about the mess and the glamour.
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
