The performer joins the digital interview and at once begins an explanation. “Apologies for the delay!” she states, seeming truly regretful. Although she's only a couple of minutes delayed, she needs to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s just what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s quite unsurprising. Anyone familiar with her fearlessly openly gay and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—which she collaborated on with Emma Seligman and starred in with close companion the talented actress—can already know that Sennott possesses a lot to discuss, whether on roles, relationships, or the appeal of starting a teen fight club. Plus, by the end her new seasonal program titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star has even more thoughts about the darker side of Gen Z life (At 30, Sennott serves as an honorary member of the gang, a tale-end millennial skilled for connecting different age groups).
Influences and Creative Vision
Parallels to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and the actress is an admirer, citing the show alongside the classic series, Insecure and the innovative program as influences for her series, which tracks the journey of online personality played by Odessa A’Zion and ally and fledgling agent portrayed by Sennott. However, the most significant spot on the moodboard was reserved for the HBO series, the program depicting a rising Hollywood star making his way in an often-seedy Hollywood (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). Sennott discovered it amid COVID-19, became “obsessed”, and chose to add a fresh perspective on it “targeting women and LGBTQ+ viewers”.
“I wanted to make a show where the internet, not Hollywood, was the industry, because my career started online,” she explains. The inspiration for the series emerged—to some extent—from personal, originally rocky, move to Tinseltown and from her saturn return, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. It was a time that saw her learn some big truths, work-wise and personally. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “After relocating to Los Angeles in my mid-twenties, I found stability, only for things to crumble. “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”
Humble Origins
Brought up in the East Coast, Sennott began developing and showcasing comedy while studying theatre at NYU’s Tisch. “I followed traditional paths to get on stage, but nothing clicked,” she says. “Auditions for university comedy troupes led to universal rejection. “Theatre productions at school also didn’t accept me. And I just felt like, what am I doing here?”
She took matters into her own hands, performing at open mics with Edebiri and posting hysterical (and distinctly) unconventional skits online. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted several females intensely drawn to pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at a trendy retail outlet as similar to being stuck in a thriller. In a neat twist of fate, she encountered Seligman through campus film circles and ended up appearing in her initial project, titled Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with echoes of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she says, has been people her own age supporting her, rather than established gatekeepers. So, not the gatekeepers, then? “They were not involved”, she repeats, adding amusedly: “They don’t want us to win.”
Manifesting Dreams
Anyone who questioned regarding her previously will likely be kicking themselves now. In what she describes as a “astonishingly complete” story, she has achieved the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a video titled “it’s LA” on the internet, in which she parodied film promos (“Everyone’s hooked on something”). Years later, she’s executive producer (with her partner) of a comedy about LA residents juggling benefits of internet fame (such as socializing at Elijah Wood’s house) with drawbacks (your associate being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and perhaps becoming a risky outcast). Some could simple to produce a program about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, even less favorable, one that belittled at the characters. This show avoids both, creating a depiction of advantaged young adult life that’s frank about the mess and the shine.
Balanced Perspective
“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
