The star enters the online meeting and immediately starts an explanation. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly remorseful. Although she's only slightly delayed, she wants to clarify. “My phone conversations always run long.” “Previous discussions went over, and I realized I talk too much!” Thankfully, for a writer, this is exactly what one hopes to hear. Moreover, it’s pretty unsurprising. Anyone familiar with the unapologetically openly gay and brash movie Bottoms—that she penned with her creative partner and featured in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—would be aware that Sennott has much to share, be it on roles, relationships, or the merits of creating a teen fight club. Plus, by the end her latest eight-part HBO series titled I Love LA, it becomes obvious that she carries even more insights regarding the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she is an honorary member of the gang, on the cusp adept for bridging millennials and Gen Z).
Influences and Storytelling Approach
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s Girls naturally arise and Sennott readily acknowledges an admirer, naming the show together with Sex and the City, Issa Rae’s show and the innovative program as influences for her series, which follows the journey of an influencer Tallulah and ally and aspiring talent manager Maia. Perhaps, the biggest spot on the moodboard was reserved for Entourage, that HBO sitcom focusing on an emerging A-list actor navigating in an often-seedy LA scene (choice quote: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She started watching it amid the pandemic, became “obsessed”, and resolved to put her own twist on it “for the girls and the gays”.
“I sought to highlight online platforms as the new industry, since my professional journey launched there,” she says. The inspiration for the series came—in part—from firsthand, at first rocky, transition to Los Angeles and from the astrological phase, a frequently discussed occurrence for followers. This represented an era that involved her grasp significant life lessons, in her career and in private life. “My twenties began with constant public emotional outbursts and disorganization,” she admits. “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 …”
Starting Out
Raised in New England, Sennott commenced writing and performing stand-up while enrolled in acting at NYU’s Tisch. “Despite trying every conventional route, I couldn’t find my footing,” she states. “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 decided to act independently, performing at open mics with Edebiri and uploading uproarious (and distinctly) weird skits on the internet. One, titled Baby Cult, centered on characters fetishistically fixated on motherhood; a different one envisioned being employed at the brand Hollister as similar to being caught in a horror film. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and ultimately appearing in her first film, titled Shiva Baby, a tense film set at a Jewish wake with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been peers giving her a shot, rather than traditional networks. So the old guard wasn’t helpful? “Not the gatekeepers”, she confirms, continuing amusedly: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Career Breakthrough
Those who were skeptical about her earlier will likely be regretting it currently. Through she describes as a “wild, full-circle” story, she has manifested her dream vehicle. A few years back she shared a clip titled about Los Angeles online, in which she mocked movie previews (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Six years on, she’s a lead creator (with her partner) of a show about LA residents balancing the perks of digital stardom (such as socializing at a celebrity’s house) with its pitfalls (your client being labeled as being a substance-abusing thief, and possibly becoming a “brand unsafe” pariah). Some could tempting to produce a program about online fame that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that punched down at its subjects. The series avoids both, creating a representation of affluent twentysomething existence that’s candid about the grot and the appeal.
Nuanced Portrayal
“There have been a lot of shows that depict young people and their relationship to the internet in this very condescending, hateful way,” 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
