The star appears on the video call and immediately starts an excuse. “I can’t believe I’m late!” she says, sounding truly remorseful. Although she's only a bit late, she needs 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, this is just what one hopes to experience. Besides, it’s quite unsurprising. Viewers who know her fearlessly openly gay and outspoken project titled Bottoms—which she co-wrote with Emma Seligman and featured in with close companion Ayo Edebiri—can be aware that she has much to discuss, ranging from on roles, sex, or the appeal of starting a high-school fight club. Plus, after watching the recent eight-part show titled I Love LA, viewers realize that the star carries even more insights regarding the darker side of modern youth (Now in her thirties, she represents an honorary member to younger audiences, straddling eras adept for straddling millennials and Gen Z).
Inspirations and Artistic Direction
The comparisons to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking show naturally arise and Sennott admits to being an admirer, naming it in addition to the HBO hit, Insecure and Atlanta as inspirations for the project, which tracks the travails of an influencer played by Odessa A’Zion and her friend who is also new representative Maia. Perhaps, the biggest presence on the moodboard went to Entourage, that program focusing on an up-and-coming celebrity making his way in a corrupt LA scene (memorable line: “happiness eludes everyone but failures in this city”). She began viewing it during lockdown, became “captivated”, and resolved to add a fresh perspective 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 notes. The inspiration for I Love LA came—partly—from personal, originally fractious, relocation to Tinseltown and from the saturn return, a frequently discussed phenomenon for enthusiasts. That period marked a time that saw her learn major truths, work-wise and in private life. “In my early 20s I was so messy, crying in public everywhere, all the time,” she admits. “Settling in LA during my mid-twenties brought calm, but soon everything unraveled.” It was almost like these biblical tests …”
Humble Origins
Brought up in Connecticut, the star began creating and acting stand-up while enrolled in theatre at a prestigious arts school. “I went through all the proper channels to try to perform, and they weren’t gelling,” she explains. “Every campus humor group turned me down after tryouts.” I tried out for all the NYU plays and didn’t make it into any of them. “I wondered why I was even there at all.”
She took matters into her own hands, taking the stage at amateur nights with her friend and sharing uproarious (and very) weird comedy videos digitally. One, Baby Cult, depicted characters fetishistically obsessed with pregnancy; a different one envisioned being employed at the preppy clothing store Hollister as like being caught in a thriller. By chance, she met Emma through campus film circles and eventually appearing in her initial project, Shiva Baby, a stressful film set at a religious event with echoes of the Safdie brothers’ movie. The big theme of her journey, she says, has been contemporaries supporting her, as opposed to the industry at large. Does that mean bypassing the usual powers? “They were not involved”, she confirms, adding with a laugh: “They prefer we don’t succeed.”
Rising Success
Individuals who questioned about her earlier will likely be feeling foolish currently. As part of she labels a “astonishingly complete” turn of events, she seems to have created the perfect project. In 2019 she posted a video named about Los Angeles online, in which she lampooned Hollywood trailers (“Substance abuse is rampant here”). Years later, she’s a lead creator (with the co-writer) of a series about Angelenos managing benefits of internet fame (such as partying at a famous actor’s house) with downsides (your friend being labeled as being a intoxicated stealer, and possibly becoming a unreliable outcast). It would be tempting to create a series about internet celebrity that was horribly aspirational—or, more problematic, one that mocked at the characters. The series avoids both, making for a portrait of advantaged young adult life that’s honest about the mess and the shine.
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 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
