🔗 Share this article

The star joins the video call and at once starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming really apologetic. Despite being only a bit late, she wants to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, during an interview, this is just what is ideal to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers who know her unapologetically queer and brash project titled Bottoms—which Sennott penned with her creative partner and starred in with her friend The Bear’s standout—will be aware that she possesses a lot to share, be it on identity, sex, or the merits of creating a teen brawl society. And, by the end the latest seasonal show titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries additional perspectives about the darker side of Gen Z life (As a millennial, Sennott serves as a bridge for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for straddling different age groups).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, citing it in addition to Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as influences for the project, which tracks the struggles of online personality Tallulah and ally and fledgling agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest spot on concept was reserved for the popular sitcom, the program focusing on an emerging A-list actor succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (memorable line: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She discovered it amid COVID-19, became “captivated”, and chose to put her own twist 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 explains. The idea for the series came—partly—from her own, originally difficult, transition to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a much-talked-about phenomenon for astrology heads. It was a time that saw her understand significant truths, professionally and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “It resembled a series of extreme challenges…”

Starting Out

Growing up in Connecticut, Sennott began writing and performing humor while enrolled in acting at a prestigious arts school. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “None of the university plays cast me either.” “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

She decided to act independently, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) bizarre online content digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, centered on a group of women obsessively obsessed with motherhood; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as akin to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she encountered Emma through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, an anxious dramedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The central motif of her journey, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, rather than traditional networks. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, continuing with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”

Manifesting Dreams

Anyone who had doubts about Sennott previously will certainly be feeling foolish currently. As part of she calls a “incredibly circular” development, she has created the perfect project. In 2019 she shared a video titled about Los Angeles on the internet, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“I’m addicted to drugs – we all are”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a comedy about city dwellers balancing the perks of internet fame (such as celebrating at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being accused of being a substance-abusing criminal, and potentially becoming a unreliable outcast). Some could easy to create a show about internet celebrity that was horribly glamorous—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. The series avoids both, creating a portrait of affluent young adult living that’s candid about the chaos and the glamour.

Nuanced Portrayal

“Many programs portray youth and online life with disdain and mockery,” 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