The actress and writer exploring her hilarious comedy about the messy allure of today's youth existence
The star joins the online meeting and at once starts an explanation. “Oh my God – I’m sorry!” she exclaims, seeming truly regretful. Despite being only a bit late, she feels compelled to explain. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Thankfully, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers familiar with her unapologetically queer and brash project titled Bottoms—that Sennott collaborated on with Emma Seligman and featured in with her friend The Bear’s standout—will already know that she possesses plenty to say, be it about gender, intimacy, or the appeal of forming a teen fight club. And, by the end her latest multi-episode HBO series I Love LA, viewers realize that she carries additional insights on the struggles of young adulthood (At 30, she represents a relatable figure of the gang, on the cusp skilled for bridging both generations).
Inspirations and Storytelling Approach
Parallels to the iconic series Girls can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing it together with the HBO hit, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for her series, which details the journey of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative Sennott’s character. However, the largest influence on concept went to the HBO series, the program focusing on an up-and-coming A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott began viewing it amid the pandemic, 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 explains. The idea for this project emerged—in part—from personal, originally rocky, relocation to LA and from her astrological phase, a much-talked-about event for astrology heads. It was a phase that involved her grasp significant life lessons, in her career and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she says. “In my mid-20s, I moved to LA and got settled. And then I felt like everything started to just fall apart. It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Early Beginnings
Brought up in the East Coast, the star commenced developing and showcasing humor while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and posting uproarious (and distinctly) weird skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, followed characters fetishistically drawn to motherhood; another portrayed working at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a scary movie. In a neat twist of fate, she met Seligman through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a religious event with hints of the intense thriller. The central motif of her career, she explains, has been peers supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Definitely not them”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Individuals who questioned about Sennott then will certainly be kicking themselves today. Through she calls a “wild, full-circle” development, she has achieved her dream vehicle. Previously she uploaded a clip called about Los Angeles on social media, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Now, she’s the co-showrunner (with her partner) of a show about city dwellers managing benefits of digital stardom (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a drug-addled thief, and possibly becoming a risky persona non grata). One might easy to make a series about digital influence that was horribly aspirational—or, worse, one that mocked at those depicted. This show avoids both, making for a portrait of affluent young adult existence that’s honest about the mess and the appeal.
Empathetic Approach
“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