🔗 Share this article

The performer enters the online meeting and right away begins an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she exclaims, sounding truly apologetic. She is only a couple of minutes delayed, she wants to explain. “I tend to talk too much during calls. “Earlier calls made me late—I just can’t stop chatting!” Luckily, during an interview, that’s exactly what one hopes to encounter. Besides, it’s quite expected. Anyone who have seen the unapologetically openly gay and unapologetically crass project Bottoms—that she penned with Emma Seligman and appeared in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would understand that she has a lot to share, be it about gender, relationships, or the appeal of forming a high-school fight club. And, after watching her new seasonal program titled I Love LA, it is clear that the star carries additional perspectives about the darker side of young adulthood (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member for this generation, straddling eras with a knack for straddling millennials and Gen Z).

Guiding Lights and Storytelling Approach

Likenesses to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show can’t be avoided and the actress readily acknowledges an admirer, referencing it alongside Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and Donald Glover’s series as guides for the project, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend and new agent Maia. However, the largest spot on the moodboard went to the HBO series, the show depicting an emerging Hollywood star making his way in a gritty Hollywood (choice quote: “only the unsuccessful find joy here”). Sennott discovered it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and decided to add a fresh perspective on it “with female and queer audiences in mind”.

“My aim was to focus on digital fame over traditional entertainment, as my own beginnings were on the web,” she explains. The concept for the series originated—partly—from firsthand, originally rocky, transition to Tinseltown and from her cosmic event, a frequently discussed occurrence for astrology heads. It was an era that saw her learn significant truths, in her career and individually. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she recalls. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” “The struggles felt almost mythic in scale…”

Humble Origins

Brought up in New England, Sennott started writing and performing comedy while studying acting 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. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”

Sennott took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at open mics with her friend and sharing hilarious (and distinctly) bizarre skits digitally. A particular video, titled Baby Cult, depicted characters obsessively fixated on pregnancy; a different one envisioned working at the brand Hollister as similar to being trapped in a scary movie. Interestingly, she met Seligman through the university’s film scene and eventually featuring in her first film, Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with shades of Uncut Gems. The central motif of her path, she says, has been peers offering opportunities, rather than the industry at large. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she emphasizes, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”

Rising Success

Anyone who had doubts regarding Sennott previously will likely be feeling foolish now. Through she labels a “incredibly circular” story, she appears to created an ideal role. A few years back she uploaded a clip titled “it’s LA” online, in which she mocked film promos (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with Emma Barrie) of a series about Angelenos juggling the perks of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with drawbacks (your client being suspected of being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). It would be simple to produce a show about online fame that was overly idealized—or, worse, one that punched down at those depicted. This show does neither, creating a depiction of affluent young adult existence that’s candid about the mess 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