The performer joins the digital interview and right away starts an apology. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, seeming genuinely apologetic. She is only slightly late, she feels compelled to justify. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, for a writer, that’s precisely what is ideal to experience. Moreover, it’s pretty predictable. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically LGBTQ+ and brash project Bottoms—that Sennott co-wrote with her creative partner and featured in with collaborator Ayo Edebiri—can understand that Sennott has a lot to say, ranging from about gender, relationships, or the merits of starting a youth brawl society. Plus, after watching the recent multi-episode show titled I Love LA, it is clear that she carries even more perspectives regarding the darker side of modern youth (As a millennial, Sennott is a bridge for this generation, on the cusp with a knack for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls are inevitable and Sennott is a fan, referencing the show alongside the HBO hit, Insecure and Donald Glover’s series as influences for I Love LA, which tracks the struggles of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and close companion and fledgling talent manager portrayed by Sennott. However, the largest spot on concept belonged to the HBO series, the HBO sitcom about an emerging Hollywood star succeeding in an often-seedy Hollywood (notable statement: “nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers”). She started watching it during COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and resolved 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 says. The idea for I Love LA came—to some extent—from her own, originally difficult, move to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a much-talked-about occurrence for astrology heads. That period marked a phase that saw her learn major insights, professionally and individually. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she recalls. “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…”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott started creating and acting stand-up while pursuing theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
Sennott seized control, appearing at open mics with her friend and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) bizarre online content online. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on several females intensely obsessed with having babies; a different one portrayed being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Emma through campus film circles and ultimately starring in her directorial debut, Shiva Baby, a stressful comedy set at a funeral gathering with shades of the Safdie brothers’ movie. A recurring idea of her career, she notes, has been contemporaries supporting her, rather than the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “Our victory isn’t their goal.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who were skeptical regarding Sennott previously will certainly be regretting it currently. In what she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she has achieved an ideal role. A few years back she posted a video named on LA life online, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s the co-showrunner (with Emma Barrie) of a comedy about LA residents managing benefits of online celebrity (such as celebrating at Elijah Wood’s house) with downsides (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing stealer, and perhaps becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be simple to create a series about internet celebrity that was horribly idealized—or, more problematic, one that belittled at its subjects. I Love LA avoids both, creating a portrait of privileged millennial life that’s honest about the grot and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“Numerous series present younger generations and digital culture in a derogatory manner,” 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
