🔗 Share this article

The star enters the video call and right away launches into an excuse. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming really remorseful. Although she's only a couple of minutes behind, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. I had two calls before this, and I’m like, I’ve gotta stop talking!” Luckily, in this context, that’s just what you want to experience. Besides, it’s fairly unsurprising. Anyone who have seen her boldly queer and brash film titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and appeared in alongside her friend Ayo Edebiri—would already know that she has a lot to say, whether about gender, intimacy, or the pros of starting a high-school combat group. And, once you finish her latest seasonal HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she has additional thoughts about the struggles of Gen Z life (At 30, she represents a relatable figure to younger audiences, a tale-end millennial adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).

Influences and Storytelling Approach

Parallels to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress admits to being enthusiastic, naming it in addition to the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and Atlanta as inspirations for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of a social media star Tallulah and ally who is also aspiring talent manager portrayed by Sennott. Perhaps, the most significant spot on creative vision was reserved for Entourage, the program depicting an up-and-coming Hollywood star succeeding in a gritty LA scene (memorable line: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott began viewing it during lockdown, became “hooked”, and chose to create a new version 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 explains. The idea for I Love LA emerged—in part—from her own, initially difficult, relocation to LA and from the saturn return, a popular event for followers. That period marked a time that saw her learn some big 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. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Early Beginnings

Raised in the East Coast, the star started developing and showcasing stand-up while enrolled in acting at New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she states. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “It left me questioning my purpose and place.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, appearing at amateur nights with Edebiri and sharing uproarious (and decidedly) bizarre comedy videos online. A particular video, Baby Cult, followed a group of women obsessively drawn to having babies; another portrayed working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a horror film. By chance, she met Seligman through NYU’s movie community and ultimately featuring in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a tense comedy set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the intense thriller. The big theme of her journey, she explains, has been contemporaries giving her a shot, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, stating amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Manifesting Dreams

Individuals who questioned regarding Sennott then will surely be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “wild, full-circle” development, she appears to achieved an ideal role. A few years back she posted a video named on LA life on social media, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with Emma Barrie) of a series about LA residents balancing advantages of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your associate being accused of being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). One might tempting to create a program about online fame that was horribly glamorous—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. This show avoids both, creating a depiction of affluent twentysomething living that’s honest about the grot and the glamour.

Empathetic Approach

“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” she observes. “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